Location hunting: Krishnamurthy Mission

We wanted to shoot a very important place where Buddha crossed Ganges.
Before giving the details of the shoot, I would like to give a little background:

It may be recalled that in 500 B.C, disillusioned with life, Siddhartha began his search for the truth as he left his princely state and wandered for six years but found nothing. Disillusioned again, was possibly on his way back to his estate, when he attained enlightenment in Gaya (Bihar) about 300 kilometers east of Banaras, and became the Buddha. He chose not to speak to people there about his experience, which he had in Gaya under the Boddhi tree, instead he began to walk west, which he did so continuously for the next 60 days to reach Banaras.

While doing research itself we got determined to show the spot where Buddha would have crossed Ganges while on his way to Sarnath (in the vicinity of Banaras). During investigations, we came across somebody who had put the same question to J. Krishnamurthy while they were walking on the bank of Ganges and Krishnamurthy had pointed out the exact spot where Buddha had crossed Ganges. J. Krishnamurthy clearly had used his mystical abilities and would have envisioned Buddha crossing the Ganges. We, therefore, decided to show where J. Krishnamurthy used to meditate under the peepal tree and in the same shot the place where Buddha crossed the Ganges.

Unfortunately that spot was inside the Krishnamurthy mission. I say unfortunately, because the mission never allows any shooting inside the campus. I approached the director of the institute Mr. Dalal, who along with his colleagues, went into discussion with me and my colleagues on the significance of shooting inside the campus. He was eager to understand the credibility of our research and the depth of our understanding of Krishnamurthy’s philosophy. After long hours of discussion, he finally allowed us to shoot on the very spot. We were and even now are very grateful to them for allowing us to shoot at such a holy location.

Remember the shot when Babaji asks Soham referring to a prince having walked 300 kilometers and crossing Ganges and Soham replying that he could see everything. There were visuals of the shadow and silhouette of Buddha and some followers walking on the bank of Ganges. Babaji meets Shwetambari for the first time and professed that she had the ability to overcome her fears.

While shooting, there was a large crowd of students from inside the mission campus who flocked around the scene. We were very proud we could show such profound personalities as Krishnamurthy and Buddha, though living in different times, but in the same shot.