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Last Journey to His Spiritual Home
from the New Indian Express Daily, Bangalore, India, December 3, 2001

LONDON: Former Beatle George Harrison was secretly cremated within six hours of his death, before the world even realized he was gone.

The spiritual explorer and Krishna devotee, who had a long association with India, chose to be cremated and the simple funeral service held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Crematorium was in all secrecy, so as to ensure that finally in death the star would elude the Beatle-mania.

His ashes will be brought to India to be immersed in the Ganges in accordance with his wishes, a spokesman of Hare Krishna movement to the Daily Mall.

Harrison, who died of cancer on Thursday at a rented house, in the presence of his wife Olivia and son Dhani amid chants and prayers by the Krishna devotees, was dressed in traditional dhoti and kurta before being taken for cremation in an unadorned white van.

Two of his closest friends, Shyamasundar das and Mukunda Goswami, chanted quietly until the end. The two Hare Krishna movement activists sprinkled holy water from the Ganges on Harrison's head. They placed a Tulsi leaf between his lips and a wreath of Tulsi leaves around his neck, humming verses from the Bhagavad-Gita.

Three months ago, Harrison realized he was likely to die and he decided to make a secret pilgrimage to his spiritual birthplace Varanasi to prepare for death, the Mall said. Pale, thin and losing hair, George Harrison came to Varanasi, the place where he discovered Eastern mysticism in the 1960's, to bathe in the sacred water and pray in the temple.

LONDON: former Beatle George Harrison was secretly recording a last album in the months before he died, according to British media reports on Sunday. The Sunday Times newspaper said Harrison played tracks from the album to his family at a Los Angeles hospital last Sunday, four days before his death from cancer at the age of 58. Harrison gave the album the working title Portrait of a Leg End, a jokey reference to his uneasy relationship with fame, the paper said.

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