Naseeruddin Shah has made public declarations of his disapproval of the way songs are used in Hindi cinema. One would be forced to think that the veteran actor doesn’t care for music. Nothing could be farther from truth. Shah not only ‘gate-crashed’ a panel on The Beatles during the Mountain Echoes festival in Thimphu on Friday, 24 August, he also broke into a scintillating rendition of Imagine by John Lennon.
Watch Naseeruddin Shah’s epic ‘gate-crash’ at 8:06 minutes.
Usha Uthup was in the middle of the song Come Together, when Shah, not one to miss out on the fun, decided to ‘come together’, with the panelists on stage.
Diving into ‘The Beatles’
A shared love of The Beatles brought together Bhutanese musician Dawa Drakpa, Indian writer and journalist Ajoy Bose, and veteran singer and musician Usha Uthup, who discussed the era-defining music in ‘Across the Universe: Beatles Forever’.
The session began with the band’s tryst with India at the Rishikesh retreat in 1968, and the influence this spiritual experience had on their work.
Ajoy Bose and Usha Uthup spoke of the impact The Beatles had on generations in the East and West, and how they became the icons of cultural expression in the '60s and '70s. Dawa Drukpa talked about how the ‘Fab Four’ was an inspiration for his band The Baby Boomers, often called ‘Bhutan’s first western-style band’.
Usha Uthup treated the audience to some classic Beatles numbers accompanied by Dawa on the guitar. The atmosphere at the event venue, that is, the Royal University of Bhutan, was charged, and the audience waved their cellphone lights at this impromptu concert.
Set against the stunning backdrop of the eastern Himalayas, the annual Mountain Echoes literary festival is an initiative of the India Bhutan Foundation, in association with one of India’s leading literary agencies, ‘Siyahi’.
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