He’s been tagged the “unluckiest man in the world”. But 47 years after he was suddenly dumped from The Beatles (“We’re more popular than Jesus”), drummer Pete Best chooses to count his blessings.

Wind the clock back to 1962 when Best was the group’s drummer in the days before they hit the big time. Fame and fortune were still some distance away but the other members of the group suddenly decided they didn’t want to continue with Best and had him thrown out. Best went into a tailspin for a time but finally recovered and, anticlimactically, became a civil servant. “That was the best way to provide a good living and security for my family,” says Best, who’s a devoted family man.

Best, now an elegant 67 year old, was recently in New Delhi — the city incidentally, where his mother Mona was born. He was here to promote his hometown Liverpool as a tourist destination with a musical past.

His Indian links go deep. The drummer was born in Chennai in 1941 and left for Liverpool at the age of four. “It is my Indian connection and the love for my hometown Liverpool which has made me come and perform here for the first time,” says Best.

Amazingly, he’s remarkably sanguine about the past and, as he performs on stage, it is easy to imagine him in his younger incarnation as a Beatle. In 1988, he made a comeback to show business and started the reasonably successful Pete Best Band.

He does vaguely remember his early years in India and a nanny who took care of him in Chennai. “India has always been special because my mother was born here and I spent a few years of my early childhood here,” says Best.

Pete Best keeps the beat going during a gig in New Delhi

In Liverpool, it was at his mother’s cafe, The Casbah Coffee Club, where the band played in its initial years before they became a worldwide sensation.

Best prefers to remember the good times with The Beatles and the two years he spent playing with them. “Looking back I think those were a good two years as a band and that’s also when our signature sound was created and we grew as a band,” he explains.

After so many years Best reckons he is not bitter about the dismissal though initially he was angry. “Had I been bitter about it I wouldn’t have talked about it,” he adds.

At a personal level, after he was dropped from the group, there has been no communication between The Beatles and him. Is he in touch with Paul McCartney, the only Beatle alive now? “Unfortunately not, even though my doors were always open but no conversation ever happened after that,” says Best.

Why was he dumped? Best, like everyone else can only speculate. “People say all sorts of things — some even say that my popularity led to it, but sadly I don’t know the real reason,” he says, in a relaxed tone.

He fondly remembers performing in nightclubs in Hamburg where the group spent several months. He remembers it as an exciting time, especially since they were so young.

But even today he is a happy man with a charming manner. Clad in a white T-shirt, he’s more than happy to talk about his album Haymans Green, which was released last year. “It was very well received and there’ll be more to come,” he says with a big grin. He’s also quite happy to look back on his successful marriage of 40 years, two beautiful daughters, grandchildren, health and happiness.

Nevertheless, Best confesses that during his years as a civil servant there were moments when he did miss music. Even though he had never thought of coming back to the music scene, “it just happened”, he says.

He started playing again in the late ’80s after requests started coming to him to play in Liverpool and he couldn’t find a reason not to. When he finally performed it was well received and this resurrected his career in music. Today he has a five-member band of whom three are vocalists.

Though this time around he missed visiting his city of birth because time was short, he intends to make up for it on his next visit to India. He and his band will soon be travelling around the world. “I will be now going to Brazil and Argentina for performances,” says Best.

Apart from making music he will soon be seen on the silver screen in a movie which is at a very early stage. But when Best is not busy travelling for the concerts he is the complete family man and loves spoiling his grandchildren who he says are the best blessings in the world — and they’re even more important to him than his time with The Beatles.