Rikhi Ram & Sons: Another Now and Then Beatles story

"Sometimes I would think that my father was just boasting about meeting The Beatles, about them being here in our shop... But it is all true, of course," said 56-year-old Ajay Sharma, with a laugh, seated inside his cosy musical instruments shop in Delhi's Connaught Place (CP).

- Ashna Butani

On a dull July afternoon in 1966 seven months before Sharma was born the Fab Four walked into Rikhi Ram & Sons in CP. They understood music well, even knew the stringed instruments that dotted the shop.

But little did Bishan Dass, Sharma's father, know at the time that the four men standing in his modest store that afternoon were Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

"Minutes later, my father's friend told him who they were. They were The Beatles. And as news spread, it all went crazy, and more people thronged the shop," said Sharma, who now helms the 103-year-old store, which sells Indian musical instruments.

Unable to buy the instruments they wanted to because of the rush of fans, The Beatles returned to their hotel, The Oberoi, a few kilometres away. "So, my father arranged a truck and went to the hotel with the instruments. A few friends and hotel staffers helped carry the instruments up to their hotel rooms. They went back home with a tabla, a sarod, a tanpura and a sitar," said Sharma, still beaming with pride.

The visit came a year after the release of Norwegian Wood, which features a Sitar, but before Harrison started studying the sitar under Ravi Shankar, and before The Beatles' dalliance with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi they spent time at his ashram in Rishikesh, writing at least 30 songs.

Now and Then