Street art is one of my favourite additions to any place or city. Let's not confuse art with tagging though, because tagging is lazy, vile and obnoxious. All these pieces were found in the abandoned Beatles Ashram in Rishikesh, India. It's hard to find colour in India that's not drowned in tacky-ness. I've wrote about the Ashram before and shared many images of it so I won't repeat my stories in this post, but allow you to enjoy the art without my negativity.
Most of these pieces are contemporary and globalised in content, however this image of a dancer in yellow is a more traditional example of street art in India. Images like this litter the dilapidated walls of all concrete India.
The Beatles. Arguably the greatest band that ever lived. I would disagree, as a Beatles fan but I understand the hysteria. Here in the centre building of this broken corner of the Earth these four men and idolised, loved and remembered, even though they're not all dead yet.
Maharishi Mahesh, the Yogi the Beatles worked with and learnt from, despite his controversies still features greatly in the street art around the Ashram. Rumour has it some members of the band were unhappy with Mahesh's advances towards their girlfriends and wife's. History has revealed that this wasn't a one off. Many Yogi's in India are tainted with stories of sexual exploitation. Most famously, stories of the Osho Ashram featured in the Netflix Documentary 'Wild, Wild Country'.
A beautiful reference to the Beatles song 'Blackbird'.
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free."
The only image here from Pune, Maharashtra. I loved this Peacock so I snuck it into my post.
And it wouldn't be a post from me without a quick reference to the 'erb'. Happy 420 and I hope you liked my post.
Love you all,
Cotton!