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December 17, 2009

Ravi Shankar Compares His Hippie Fans To 'Naga Sanyasis' (Joint Smoking Holy Men)'...

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Speaking on Indian television, Shankar spoke fondly of the Beatles as people, but explained that he never felt comfortable with the pop star he became….Then what happened was that I became a pop star all of a sudden. All young people, bearded, long hair, wearing beads and not normal. They would behave like Naga sanyasis [joint smoking holy men] if they were permitted and I was not happy at all. I would tell George, ‘What have you done?’.”

Shankar was so disapproving of this kind of behavior that he actually cancelled his performance at the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967 after he saw The Who smashing up instruments and claiming the festival was “all drugs and nobody normal there and at Woodstock in 1969 he asked “Who was listening to music? They were all stoned.”



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