It is hard to make a biographical film about a man whose early years are shrouded in obscurity. And that's exactly what makes Writer-Cinematographer-Director Gaurav Seth's Prabhupada: A Lifetime In Preparation a commendable effort. When a frail 69-year old Prabhupada travelled on a decrepit cargo ship to America in August 1965, with just seven dollars worth of Indian rupees and a few books, he was a nondescript devout with a distant dream. Of course, in the next 12 years he started the Hare Krishna movement, gained global following, built 108 temples across the world and wrote over fifty books." There is enough footage of his American achievements," says Seth, "but no material at all on his life in India. There is just a photograph of his and no one even knows what his parents looked like."

On November 14 this year which is being celebrated by ISKCON (The International Society for Krishna Consciousness) as it's founder Srila Prabhupada's birth centenery, the 50 minute docu-drama will be telecast on Doordarshan at 10:30 p.m. Bombay Times had an exclusive preview of the film, which begins with the sepia-tinted Calcutta of 1896 and slowly traces the life of a cloth merchant's son who spent most of his life in preparation to fulfill a mission.

The whole story is narrated in the first person by Pramod Dasgupta, as the voice of Prabhupada, through a series of montages set to the music of Vanraj Bhatia, that attempt to recreate the events and the emotions without actually showing any kind of characters. "It was a big risk to use the first person narrative for the soundtrack," explains Seth, who has a Master's Degree in Cinematography and Film Direction from the Russian Federation State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. "Many people objected to the idea, but Shyam Benegal who chief project consultant on the film and was involved in the scripting stages, approved of it. Prabhupada has hardly spoken about himself, so we had to invent his words, the way he would have spoken."

The film ends with Prabhupada's arrival in New York and a short epilogue of what he achieved thereafter. Our aim was not to highlight his achievement in America," says Seth. "Instead we kept the focus on his struggle against all odds to fulfill this mission. Even from a cinematic point of view, it is more attractive - an old man without money but just a vision."

The Times of India
September 26, 1996