2019 – Fixer / Translator: Varanasi, India – Samuel og Bestefar

[How do you know that you are making the right choices in life? And how does karma affect the life choices one faces in life. Samuel is curious about this and brings his grandfather to India, the country he has always dreamed of visiting. Samuel and Grandpa also decide to travel to Israel, the country where his mother and father met in the 1980s.]

This was my first gig working in Reality TV and since my background is in Documentary, (and more recently) producing magical experiences for groups touring India, I did my best to assure their shoot was as much “good TV” as it was personally transformational for the cast. What could have been two tourists being silly in the tiny galis of Banares, turned into a series of encounters that most of the time had me in tears watching.

Being that the shooting was taking pace during the last few days of Durga Puja, I had proposed certain activities that were initially turned down by the producer (having little knowledge about real life in India). However as the Divine Universe is a much greater planner than any of us could be, everything that I had suggested we just stumbled upon automatically.

First I had suggested they host a bandhara, a public feast offering. The producers turned this idea down. However driving down the road on the last day of Durga Puja, we past by a bandhara. I pointed it out to them out the window and they wanted to stop to check it out. I assumed they would just get invited to join in and partake in prasād,  However by the time I had gathered up the bags to join them, I saw Samuel and his grandfather serving the guests themselves! This brought tears to my eyes.

Then at some point early on in the production, Dadaji (granddad) had shared with me that his son had committed suicide when he was in his 20s, sometime in the mid ’80s. They had already expressed an interest in the burning ghats and that is why we were staying just next door. But this information took their journey to another level of potential. By their last day I had Granddad, bathing in the Ganga, putting on a white dhoti and sitting for a three hour puja to help liberate the soul of his son and ease his own pain of loss in his heart.