McCartney Times

Memory can play tricks on you, as it did with me when I was trying hard to recall how and when I came to know of George Harrison’s The Concert for Bangladesh at New York’s Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1971. Growing up in small town Jamshedpur in an era when the only source of information was The Statesman unless you also tuned into BBC World Service every night, it was not easy to keep pace with events beyond India’s shores.It was possibly during the summer vacation of 1975 that I came across the album, The Concert for Bangladesh, a three-LP boxed set with its memorable cover of a Bangladeshi refugee child – a stark image of innocence betrayed, reproduced along with this article, that has since remained indelibly stamped on my mind. This was in a second hand record shop in Kolkata’s Free School Street. The shop-owner refused to part with the album even when offered the princely sum of Rs 100. It was not for sale, but he would make a copy on a 90-minute cassette which would cost Rs 25. That cassette, its tape worn thin, remains a prized.

Source: How George Harrison Used Music To Awaken World Conscience On Bangladesh