The Beatles want to hold your hand. The Stones want to burn your house down. The word was out, Bangalore and Mumbai would have to guard their homes, lest Tom Wolfe’s pithy observation came true. So when Venkat Vardhan of DNA Networks confided in me early in 2003 that the Rolling Stones were indeed coming to India, I couldn’t believe it. But they did come. They did play Bangalore on 4th April and Mumbai on 7th April. And when that happened, it represented the coming together of three things that I hold dear to my heart: Calcutta, cricket and the Beatles.

Venkat, the promoter, is from Bangalore. But the man who hooked him up with Messrs Mick Jagger & Co. was Dilip Doshi, the left arm orthodox spinner who used to play in Calcutta even though he is from Gujarat. We rejoiced his belated inclusion in the Indian Test squad—why not, he was a ‘Kolkata-r chheley’ after all—in 1979 against Australia in Madras (Chennai) where he ended up scalping 8/167 in the match. Yet unknown to us then, his other passion was the Rolling Stones. Writing about it in The Telegraph (London) in August 2006, Doshi recounts how at his request the enterprising owner of Calcutta Gramophone Stores on Lindsay Street would have Stones records shipped to him from Decca Records, England, in the mid-’60s. A serious pursuit of cricket led Doshi to England where, lo and behold, he got to meet Jagger in the ’70s while playing county.

Suffice to say the India leg of the Forty Licks tour would not have happened, but for Dilip Doshi. ‘I first met Mick (Jagger) when I was playing for Nottingham in the ’70s. Both he and Charlie Watts had come to watch England play,’ he told us in Mumbai at a meet-the-Press to announce the India concerts. Soon they became friends. Good enough to practise together at the nets at Lords on several occasions.

Doshi revealed he had long been discussing with Jagger the possibility of a Stones gig in India. It all fell into place once Venkat agreed to produce and manage the shows in India.

Exactly 13 years later, in October 2016, the Rolling Stones would be playing on two consecutive weekends at a desert in California. They did a bluesy cover of ‘Come Together’, a song Jagger nonchalantly described as being penned by an ‘unknown beat group.’

Reading about it first and then watching a recording of the performance on YouTube, I was transported back in time and reminded of what Keith Richards had told me during a telephone conversation barely 24 hours before their Bangalore concert, the f irst time the Rolling Stones would be performing in India.

Yet, I can’t forget how the India tour may not have happened at all. China, the Stones stopover prior to India, had imposed certain conditions. The Stones were asked not to play certain songs because of, I presume, the sentiments they seemed to encourage. As bizarre as it may sound now, the Stones agreed.

Thank you for not calling off the India tour. 

Keith: Yes, the band can’t wait to get to India. That mechanical failure (the aircraft snag) just held up things. But we are here. By the way, I love your carpets.

You called off the China tour because of the South Asian health scare over SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). The fans there must be disappointed?

We are very disappointed. Personally, it was okay with me, you know, but when you are talking about the lives of hundreds of people you’ve got to take a call. The idea is to enjoy the concert; when that isn’t going to happen, there’s no point to it. But we’ll go back there for sure, once things get cool.

China had banned the Stones from playing ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’. I thought you guys would be the last to agree to censorship.

It’s kind of weird to be told what to play and what not to. It’s only a love song. But we respect the sensitivities of other countries. And since I have no political axe to grind, I say, ‘You don’t want us to play it, okay we won’t. I don’t give a damn’.

On to music. You have said that the only place that instils a sense of peace in you is the stage. Explain that.

That’s the only place where we don’t have to answer phones and no one is asking us questions. You are alone at peace with the music. I think the other guys in the band will share my feelings.

How do you inspire yourself to play ‘Satisfaction’ a zillion times?

‘Satisfaction’ is a dream. I know it in my dream. When I play ‘Satisfaction’ it’s like living a dream. And who doesn’t like to live his dreams?

Do you still feel that Scotty Moore’s solo on Elvis’s ‘I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone’ is the best thing to happen to music and you? 

I can’t believe you know this. Yes, Scotty is great and believe me I still can’t play that solo (laughs).

The Rolling Stones vs the Beatles. How was it like in those days? You know, John (Lennon) and George (Harrison) were particularly fond of the Stones. 

John was a very dear friend of mine. I miss him dearly. I think the Beatles learnt and took quite a lot from us just as we did from them. Often, we used to say we should have all been in the same band. Now, John and George are not with us—nothing in the world is perfect. You know that don’t you?

That night Bangalore got itself another introduction—the city that kicked off the India edition of the Rolling Stones’ Forty Licks tour. ‘This is a good place to start our gigs in India. It’s good to be here,’ screamed Jagger.