Patricia Angadi: A Biographical Essay

Patricia Angadi was an artist, writer and co-founder of the Asian Music Circle who played a key role in George Harrison's initiation into Indian music. She had been born Patricia Fell-Clark on September 23, 1914, at 68, Fitzjohns Avenue, Hampstead, London, whose current value is £5,628,000. Her father, Robert Fell-Clark (1872-1949), was an alumnus of Cambridge University whose full history is here (note: death date is wrong; he died on March 1, 1949). On June 5, 1914, Robert was listed in The Times as a member of the General Circle in the Royal Court. By 1939, Robert had retired and was living with his wife and Patricia at Mill Court, Wallingford, Berkshire. Their status can be inferred from the fact that they had servants and that Patricia was able to live there at age 25 despite doing unpaid domestic labour. We can also infer that Patricia was experiencing a generation gap given that, when she was 25, her father was 67 and her mother 62.

Patricia entered the art scene in London and was named in The Observer on July 7, 1940, as having a painting exhibited at the Goupil Gallery Salon (clipping here). Her life changed dramatically on Labour Day, 1943, when she married Ayana Deva Angadi (1903-1993), who had been a Marxist radical in London throughout the previous decade. British surveillance reports claimed these details about Angadi to be true:

AYANA VEERAYASWAMI ANGADI has lived mainly in the United Kingdom since 1930. He is an individual of ordinary status who has made a livelihood as a lecturer and journalist. His book 'Japan’s Kampf' attracted the favourable attention of the Ministry of Information during the war and for a time he was engaged as a lecturer to troops. However he was relieved of this occupation because he introduced his political views into the lectures. 

ANGADI is described as being a revolutionary Communist. His record includes a sentence in 1937 of a month’s imprisonment for stealing a typewriter. 

Since 1946 ANGADI has toured and lectured in the Scandinavian countries more than once and many of his lectures have been marked by a strong anti-British bias. He has made himself unpopular both in Norway and Denmark and the former has decided to refuse him a visa should he apply for one again. 

It has been stated that his visit to Norway in February 1947 was under the auspices of the Imperial Institute, and has been suggested that the Institute should be told about his undesirability. You may be able to find out if it is correct that the Institute sponsored ANGADI in any way, and may be able to tell someone in the Institute about the kind of individual he is.

The reality was that Angadi had been involved in dogmatic disputes with the Stalinists who ran the Communist Party. For example, Harry Wicks reported that Angadi (under his pseudonym Raj Hansa) had disrupted a CP meeting to protest the Moscow Trials (CLR James, World Revolution, p.18).

The Angadis initially lived with Patricia's parents in Wallingford, where the first of their four children was born in 1944. By the 1950s they had settled in Finchley, where they were still living at the time they were photographed with George and Patti here:

This appears to be from the same session as the photo above given the clothing of the participants. The Angadis had formed the Asian Music Circle at some point in the 1940s or early 50s. It seems likely that the growth of the Circle was initially funded by Patricia's inheritance after her father died in 1949. It began to be featured regularly in The Guardian and The Observer in 1954, a year after Yehudi Menuhin became President.

Sarah Harrison's obituary of Patricia gives this account of how she was introduced to The Beatles:

It was in the mid-1960s that Angadi met the Beatles. The group was recording the Rubber Soul album at the nearby Abbey Road studios, and a string had broken on Harrison's sitar; replacements were not easy to find for an instrument then practically unknown in Britain. The Beatles had rung the Indian embassy, which had put them on to the Asian Music Circle - and thus to the Angadis. 

Ringo Starr made the call, and Patricia was invited to listen to the group put the finishing touches to Norwegian Wood, as she drew sketches of John Lennon and Harrison. The Beatles later joined the Angadis at home, where they were introduced to Shankar. Harrison became a regular visitor, and was duly painted.

The rest was history.