In the first place, I planned not to make a physical record of the experience: No notes, no audio tapes, no photographs. I adopted two counter-intuitive strategies. Perhaps that is Ono’s offering to the world: She trains her audiences to discover the art coiled within every breathing moment. Instead of treating my celebrity subject as an orange to be squeezed for flavours and stories, I would use her visit like a citrus-mill, to squeeze myself for understandings and insights. As the amount of time to speak to the artist waned, I had decided to re-interpret this handicap as an opportunity. Also, I don’t think they will permit a gift!”Īt the press-meet, two rooms had been set aside, one with chairs facing a stage and another in which beverages and snacks had been laid out. Roshini wrote back “No-one is actually getting more than three to five minutes on a one-on-one. It’s going to sound very corny but here’s what I asked Roshini for: 10 minutes of silence and the chance to give the artist a tiny object that I believed was emblematic of India. Reflective water tapping forever in our minds. Sweet smell of the air which slips in ones dream.

The title of the photo collection was MUSEUM OF MODERN FART.

I sent three questions by e-mail: about an exhibition of photographs in London about her peace activities (I wanted to know which one had been the most successful) about the sensory associations she had, if any for India for Japan and for the USA. In her beguiling otherness, her oriental poise and her remote, mature-woman’s angularity, she loomed over the four musicians. While the four famously clownish, long-haired and pink-faced young men cavorted for the camera, she was the alien in their midst, even as she became an inseparable part of their public image.

The tilted almond eyes, the Buddha-smile, the minimal make-up and the stillness: from the very outset, she had a solemnity that distinguished her from all the adoring wives, groupies and assorted sycophants that surrounded other rock stars. Even if she did, Roshini warned me, the answers were likely to be poetic and brief.įrom the time I was sixteen, the image of Yoko Ono’s pale face framed by a rippling tide of black hair had been stitched into my consciousness. Plus, she may not have time to answer: this was Saturday she was embarking for India on Sunday. But there was no chance that I’d be in direct, personal contact with Ono. This lightning rod for grief at the time of Lennon’s appointment with the bullet of a demented fan.Į-mail was possible, said Roshini.

This gentle-faced, pyjama-clad peace-activist with the unnerving penchant for peeling off her inhibitions in public. This target of Beatle-fan hatred as the group unravelled, supposedly on account of her. Something that would reflect the singularity of this diminutive Japanese woman, this maverick bohemienne with the chequered past who captured the heart of rock ’n’ roll’s god-king only to lose him to the toxicity of fame. I’d have to try something unique, I thought. Her team of five handlers would act as buffers throughout and even for micro-brief individual interviews, the only opportunities would come immediately after the press-meet. From the very start, she said, the plan made between herself and Parul Vadehra, sister-in-law and co-director, “was to limit access, to keep it dignified.” So there was no question of getting to spend an extended time with Ono. Roshini Vadehra, daughter of founder Arun Vadehra and director of the institution, met me the weekend before the invitations-only press conference. What kind of interview was possible in fifteen minutes? Then a further fifteen minutes were whittled away. Both were to open simultaneously at two Vadehra galleries. One of the shows, ‘Our Beautiful Daughters,’ was conceived exclusively for India while the other, ‘The Seed,’ is a retrospective. The last time she visited India was along with Lennon in the 70s.

The legendary singer, song-writer, performance artist, peace activist and widow of John Lennon was going to be in New Delhi in early 2012, for four days, inaugurating two shows in India.įive minutes. That’s all the time I’d get with Yoko Ono. Facing Page: A painting in acrylics (9'X12') by Manjula Padmanabhan for Forbes India, based on Iain Macmillan痴 photograph of Yoko Ono that appeared on the jacket of Grapefruit A Book of Instruction and Drawings, by Yoko Ono Introduction by John Lennon Top: Ink & paper illustration by Manjula Padmanabhanįive minutes.

Yoko ono grapefruit map piece