Banaras, A Mystic Love Story

Banaras is not a destination its a journey of our lives. If you go to watch this movie for a ready-made solution or only to "kill" two hours, you may get disappointed. Banaras is aimed to create a thirst for something one is generally uncomfortable to explore.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Thoughts behind naming the characters in the movie






Soham: A lot of discussion has already happened around “Soham”. In short Soham stands for “I am that” or “Aham Brahmashmi”.

Shwetambari: Shwet (white) stands for the divine and pure. Ambar (sky) stands for infinite vastness and openness. Shwetambari is meant to communicate someone who is pure and has a very big heart. Someone infinitely compassionate.

Gayatri Devi: Gayatri is a powerful mantra. The name was meant to create an effect of royalty. Someone regal and unalterable.

Mahendra Nath: Initially we wanted to name the father as Mahanth Mahendra Nath Mishra. A Mahanth is the religious head associated with the temples and denotes glory and power. However, to avoid any controversy around any association being drawn with certain individuals, we decided to call him Mahendra ji. Or Mahendra Nath ji.

Babaji: Babaji’s character was certainly inspired by the great ever living seer mentioned in “The autobiography of a yogi”( Translated in more than 17 languages and an international bestseller), by Yogananda. His disciple, therefore who informs about Babaji’s immortality is named Purnanand.


Similarly every character was named to fit the role he/she was playing in the movie. Mahamaya, Gunjan Dvivedi, Chaturang, Satya Pal Shukla were all given their names to look credible in the role they were playing.

Please feel free to comment

3 Comments:

Blogger me2007 said...

After watching the alternate climax,all i can say is that if banaras is facing brickbats for being the kind of movie it is,the critics would have gone mad had they seen the alternate climax.
about babaji's character...i thought his presence was so natural that it came as a surprise that it is infact inspired.
its funny that people will accept movie like matrix,sixth sense,bruce almighty etc...but will laugh at something like banaras

Sunday, June 25, 2006 2:36:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Dear meeta,

You can imagine our sensitivity to people's reactions. In order to accomodate this particlar ending we had characterised Shwetambari to be a healer in the beginnig.

Yet we realised that people may find the ending to be far fetched and hence changed it.

Though, I must admit, that a few of my friends fron Us quite liked the earlier ending, which surprised.

About Babaji; Even as I child, I had this character in my mind, even though I gave it a name when I read The autobiography of a yogi, much later.

Sunday, June 25, 2006 8:11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey what a great site keep up the work its excellent.
»

Thursday, July 20, 2006 11:10:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home