Mal Evans

Mal was the Beatles ‘roadie’ and right hand man at the ashram, and I liked him enormously.

He was a lovely, caring man. He was also talented, playing Hammond organ, piano and tambourine as well as singing on various Beatles record tracks. The day I left the ashram for New Delhi with Mal, Ringo, Maureen, Gypsy Dave and Yvonne, Mal turned to me: “Mate, Gypsy Dave and Yvonne don’t have a place to stay tonight in Delhi. Can you put them up, where you’re staying? They fly out very early in the morning.” “Sure,” I said, “there’s another guestroom in the High Commissioner’s residence, and I’m sure Jim and Carol wouldn’t mind.”

It was almost midnight when we pulled up to the front gates of the Canadian High Commissioner’s residence at #4 Aurangzeb Road. The night security guard looked past the driver, saw me in the front seat, and waved us in, past the large circular fountain still burbling away in the centre of the expansive front lawn. It was hotter than in the foothills, and the night air was filled with the lovely, sweet fragrance of tuberose. My two guests were gone by the time I awoke and that evening, over dinner with Jim and Carol in the residence’s formal dinning room, Carol asked, “How was your time at the Maharishi’s?”

I told them how excellent it had been. Then I added how special and comforting it had been for me to be invited into their home, three weeks earlier. I told them about my heartbreak, and the silent scream inside that was now gone. There was a long pause, and Jim said, quietly, “We know. We heard it.”