I’ve been away nearly 7 weeks now, and I’ve shot a lot of images.

I’ve now selected my twelve favourites.

They’re not necessarily technically perfect, and they’re not necessarily very good photographs. They’re probably not shots you would have chosen…

But they’re just pictures that sing to me of people and place…

Chandni Chowk Market, Delhi © Bill Bennett

Woman on train to Amritsar © Bill Bennett

Lotus blossoms in market Dharamsala © Bill Bennett

Sikh at Golden Temple, Amritsar © Bill Bennett

Wagah Border Ceremony Guard © Bill Bennett

Sadhu by banks of Ganges, Rishikesh © Bill Bennett

Sadhu at Parmarth aarti, Rishikesh © Bill Bennett

Boy at Parmarth aarti, Rishikesh © Bill Bennett

Tin worker, slums Bombay © Bill Bennett

Thimphu Markets, Bhutan © Bill Bennett

Ladies in alley, Varanasi © Bill Bennett

Buddhist Master, Bhutan © Bill Bennett

Today was a travel day – leaving Varanasi to head to Bombay.

But before we left, we shot one more sequence. We got up at 5am, well before dawn, to shoot our artist painting a Third Eye onto a block down by the water, as the sun came up.

My photos don’t show the true splendour of this sequence – Pieter’s cinematography certainly does.

After completing the shooting we quickly packed up and headed off, with five porters carrying our luggage and film equipment cases through the narrow alleys and out onto the streets already chaotic with the ceaseless cacophonous flow of humanity that is Varanasi.

We said our goodbyes to Rachit. It was sad. He is a very smart young man with a huge heart and enormous compassion for all. He’s done a terrific job for us – and I know we’ll be seeing him again, and working with him again, very soon.

We’re now in Bombay.
A day off tomorrow.
It’s been non-stop since Pieter arrived.
For Jen and me, it’s been non-stop since we landed in India nearly six weeks ago!

With the time spent in Varanasi though, each of us looks back on the period with enormous fondness. It is a complex yet subtle city, chaotic yet calm, aggressive yet deeply spiritual and at peace.

It’s not a simple place. Yet it’s been doing what it does for three thousand years. And what it does is bring those that seek it closer to God.

We spent the day getting some iconic imagery for the film –
We hired a painter to put this picture of the Third Eye up on a wall…

We also shot a sequence with a sage reciting ancient texts…

We also shot with Raju Baba in a very old private library containing Sanskrit books hundreds of years old…

When the light went lousy Jennifer and I went and had a reading from a famous astrologer and palmist.

I had asked Rachit to call him up cold for an appointment. He knew absolutely nothing about Jennifer and me when we walked in. He didn’t even know our names.

He got our birth dates and time of birth, and place of birth, and fed them into his software programme – and then read our palms.

He was unerringly accurate in what he told us had already happened in our lives, and what was coming up.

For me, he said “name and fame” was approaching – that the world would soon know my name, and I would be famous. And that prosperity would follow. He said that I would travel extensively, and meet important people.

This is consistent with what the Bombay astrologer told me this time last year, and what Joni Patry in Dallas told me late last year.

He said I had to be careful of a health issue – respiratory, he said.

How did he know about the cough I’ve had?

And said that Jennifer had “occult powers” and she could read the psychology of other people.

How did he know that Jennifer has occult powers and can read the psychology of other people?

He gave us some warnings about things coming up – things we should look out for – and it was only when I was leaving did he tell me he was writing a book about astrology and intuition.

How does that happen? That I’m drawn to someone who’s writing such a book?

After the reading Jennifer and I found a little hole in the wall chai place where we did a debrief. It was a cool place.

We sat on a little bench inside, and this person sat opposite us –

This was what was on the walls –

This was the wiring –

This was a tea-chest full of clay cups, which are thrown on the ground and smashed once you’ve had your chai.

Tomorrow we fly to Bombay to continue filming – but first we have to shoot a dawn sequence which I’m hoping will be a knock out.

Here’s my personal favourite shot of the day…

But I also like this shot –

I’ll start this post off with a quote from Mark Twain about Benares – or Varanasi, as it’s now called:

Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and it looks twice as old as all of them put together!” 

The Buddha is said to have preached in Kashi, as it was then called, in the 6th century BC. Kashi is the permanent home of Shiva, one of Hindu’s most important and revered gods.

According to the book Benares – City of Light: 

Here Shiva dwells in order to bestow the enlightening wisdom of liberation. Although Shiva is omnipresent, there are a few places that are especially transparent to his luminous presence. And of these few, Kashi, the City of Light, is the most brilliant of all. 

People come from all over India to die here. for “death in Kashi is Liberation. From Kashi one makes the great “crossing” to the far shore. Death in Kashi is death known and faced, not feared. Death is faced, transformed, and transcended. 

Varanasi is the most sacred and holy city in India. Yet for a first time visitor, it can be overwhelming. It’s not an easy place for a westerner.

It’s crowded, filthy, and there are plenty of touts and scammers, paradoxically.  And yet it also has a subtle energy that rises above all that. And that energy comes from the sacred Ganga.

We got up well before dawn this morning to get some shots on the larger camera that Pieter shoots with – the Sony FS7. We wanted to get the sunrise, and also to get more shots of the worshippers at the ghats.

As we drifted along the shoreline, shooting, I noticed that other boats were passing us, full of tourists taking photos.

It must be very disconcerting for these worshippers to come down to the sacred Ganges at daybreak to pray and do their rituals, only to be gawked at and photo-opped by hundreds of tourists sitting metres off shore in boats.

Mind you, that’s what we were doing too – except our camera was bigger.

But it occurred to me that this had become something of a sideshow – like a zoo. And it’s a shame really. There’s an undercurrent of tension here in Varanasi. The locals don’t like the tourists invading their sacred space, their reverential privacy – and I completely understand that.

This is the only place I’ve been to in India where I’m constantly told I can’t take photos – not of sacred places, of which I’m respectful, but of regular activities, and even of people in the street. Today I took a shot of a person walking past, and he aggressively bailed me up and demanded money.

Normally if I take a photo of someone I ask their permission first, and usually that permission is given, but here I’m constantly told no – or if it’s a yes, it’s conditional upon a payment.  Even some of the sadhus – the holy men – demand money if you take their shot.

This man didn’t though –

… he just wanted me to buy something from his stall. There was nothing there I wanted to buy, so I offered him some money because I had imposed on his time taking photos. He refused, but I insisted – and he was very grateful.

Getting back to our day – after the early morning shoot we went back to our hotel. Pieter had to do some admin work, Rachit had to line up tomorrow’s filming, so Jennifer and I went for a walk through the labyrinthine system of tiny alleys, jammed full of fascinating stalls.

We stopped for a chai, made fresh and served in the traditional clay cups.

Late in the afternoon as the light became more interesting again we reconvened for more filming – this time it involved various shots of moi walking along the ghats.

We also shot some more pretty pretty footage.

Tomorrow we shoot some staged sequences – and then the next day we’re flying out to Bombay for some shooting there.

It’s taken me a little while to slip into the energy of this ancient city, but now I understand what all the fuss is about…

Steve McCurry’s work always humbles me… he is a master of color, light, and capturing the essence of the human experience.

Up at dawn this morning, and out on the Ganges to film Varanasi as the sun came up.

Varanasi is regarded as the world’s oldest sacred city – older than Jerusalem, older than Mecca, older than ancient Rome or Constantinople.

Pilgrims have been coming here for three thousand years.

It’s known by three names – Kashi, Benares, and Varanasi. Kasha means City of Light. And that’s what it has, particularly at dawn, it has a particular other-worldly light.

We filmed from our boat, and were able to see the worshippers at the ghats from the river’s perspective. It was an incredible start to the day.

During our filming I spotted a sadhu about to bath in the water.

We filmed him bathing, and then later we brought our boat up close to him and I asked him if he would be happy to film with us later that afternoon.

He agreed.

I was delighted, because I’d been looking for an archetypal sadhu to shoot some structured sequences with. This gentle-man was perfect, with his ascetic built, his long white beard, plus he spoke passable English.

We then made our way back to the hotel, and spent several hours setting up some sequences which we’ll film on Saturday, and then at 3pm we headed off to meet the sadhu.

His name was Raju Baba, and he took us to his Ganga Temple right by the river. This is a place where he meditates at 4am each day.

We filmed him meditating…

Later he took us to a house owned by a friend and I did an interview with him. I wanted to ask him about Varanasi being the planet’s Third Eye chakra…

He was a wonderful man, with a good command of English, and he will bring yet again another dimension to the film.

We flew into Varanasi this afternoon –

My PGS told me we should go there, that it would be important for the film – but I didn’t really know why.

At Delhi airport I was directed by my PGS to buy a book called Benares – City of Light.  It’s a very readable an academic account of Varanasi, which used to be called Benares.

I was reading this book on the plane, and on touchdown in Varanasi I read the last sentence of the chapter I was on – and it said that Benares is regarded by the Hindus as being the embodiment of the sixth chakra, which is the Ajna Chakra – which links to the Third Eye.

Bam!
I suddenly knew why I’d come.

The Third Eye is integral to intuition. Essentially, I’d come to the most important place on the planet for intuition.

There’s a lot I will tell you about this fascinating place – that it’s the home of Shiva, that it exists above the earthly plane, that it’s the crossover place for the dead – but it’s late now and I’ll just quickly run through today’s essentials, and tell you more in the coming days…

I’d booked a cheap guest house that faces the Ganges – but I didn’t realise it’s impossible to get a vehicle close to the places by the river. That meant we had to park about 10 minutes walk away, and some young fellas from the hotel came and carried our bags through the chaos of the old part of town.

Jennifer glided along with her usual stately calm…

We finally got to the hotel, dropped our bags off, and went for a walk – and soon found a sadhu who looked like he’d been plucked from Central Casting.

But he was the real deal.
So we filmed him.

He didn’t mind – and when I offered him money when we’d finished he refused to take it.

We then walked along by the Ghats – the stairs that run down to the river – and ended up in a cafe atop a hotel that had a breathtaking view of the sacred river.

We snacked on a plate of Tandoori mixed vegetables.
Spicy!
Beautiful!

Tomorrow we’re getting up before dawn to shoot.

This is a special place.
The embodiment of the Sixth Chakra…

It seemed our time in Bhutan was too short.

But we were there to work, not sightsee.
Our priority was to get the interview with the Prince, and to shoot some visuals that would be relevant to the film I’m making.

So given that, I don’t feel qualified to give a summation of the country. These then are merely my superficial observations of the brief time spent there….

Energy –
There is a gentle energy to the place that becomes apparent from the moment you step off the plane.

The airport terminal itself is truly beautiful – built in the traditional Bhutanese style of intricately carved wood. I have never landed at a more beautiful airport.

And I have never been through a more benign Customs and Immigration.

Everything was so quick and easy.
And they actually smiled at you!

It’s not that they were lax in any way, they were just respectful.

Shy versus humble –
It became apparent right from the start that the Bhutanese are very humble people. Our tour operator said they were shy, and perhaps they are shy, but I preferred to call them humble. And respectful.

The women, when they talk to you, will often put their hand over their mouth, so that you can’t actually see the words being uttered. And they will avert their gaze. The men will often bow their heads, and step back in a gesture of respect.

I never regarded these gestures as being a sign of weakness or servitude.

On the contrary, it spoke of their humility – a product of their deep commitment to their culture, and to their religion, which is Buddhism.

There is no doubt they are a proud strong people. And the women, when they need to, will look you in the eye – and you can see in their eyes that they do carry the strength of the country.

Royalty –
The Bhutanese have huge respect for the Royal Family. There are often photos of the Royal Family in shops and homes – and there are big portraits of the King and Queen on billboards around the larger towns.

Having met the Prince, and sensing the power and status he must have in his country, I was knocked out by his humility and grace… There was no strutting, no ego, no grandstanding. There was a simple self-effacement. As though he was honoured to be in my company.

This astonished me.

And of course in being so humble, it gave him extraordinary power and strength.

Preconceptions –
Just like some outsiders believe that we in Australia have kangaroos jumping down our main streets, I too arrived in Bhutan with certain preconceptions.

I though it was going to be far more primitive than it turned out to be. And far more under-developed.

I was surprised at the standard of housing – big houses, beautifully built. There was very little low-cost housing, and I saw no slums or homeless.

As well, there is internet everywhere.

I thought that one of the reasons Bhutan is said to be so happy is because they’re not connected. They’re not online. Here finally was an old fashioned country where the people actually TALKED to one another.

False!

The internet in Bhutan is one of the best systems I’ve ever encountered, anywhere. Our guide and driver were constantly on their mobiles, texting or posting to Facebook. And every hotel had terrific wifi with fast speeds.

I bought a SIM card for my iPad as soon as I landed, and 7GB of data (for a week, yes I know it was a bit of overkill…) cost me approximately $18. So it’s cheap, and ubiquitous.

Economy / shopping –
Bhutan looks like a fairly prosperous country. Apart from the fairly cheap internet, the cost of living is quite high. A cappuccino costs about US$3. That’s what you’d pay at Starbucks in the US.

I asked our guide, Kezang, who was very knowledgeable, how Bhutan made money. he said the principle export is power – hydro power – to India. The second biggest export is rice.

There are rice paddys everywhere – red rice most often – and as with most of the produce that is grown in Bhutan, it’s all organic. And all very delicious.

It tastes like real food, which is something quite rare nowadays in the west!

Food –
Food was always served in a buffet style – in hotels and restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it was always pretty much the same thing – steamed rice, cooked mixed vegetables, local mushrooms and broccoli, chicken cut into small cubes, often with a big chunk of gristle inside. Sometimes there would be another meat dish, like lamb – but again, the “non-veg” portion of the meal was usually cut into small chunks, with bits of bone attached.

Drinks consisted of beer or water. There was a local beer – I’m by no means a beer aficionado, but Pieter likes his amber brews and he said it was pretty damn good.

You can’t though mention Bhutanese drinks without mentioning Butter Tea. Butter tea is made with milk and butter – oh yes, and a bit of tea. It’s truly one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever ingested, not counting that bucket of KFC I had one year when I had pimples and didn’t know any better.

Summer of 2012, if I recall…

Happiness –
The Bhutanese people I met were very friendly, respectful to the point of embarrassment sometimes, and they all seemed to be happy.

however I got to talking to an American lady in one of the coffee shops in the capital Thimphu. Turned out she was a psychiatrist working in Bhutan for several months, and she told me of a high suicide rate, particularly in the rural areas, and high incidences of drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence.

She said that alcoholism is a big problem – the booze is home made, from various grains, and is firewater. It makes the men do crazy things. Same everywhere, sadly – although I was hoping it wouldn’t be the case in Bhutan.

And the drugs come in from India. Largely opiates, which are an unrefined form of heroin.

Deadly stuff.

The psychiatrist said there were seven suicides a month – and this with a total population of not even 700,000.

Perhaps this is the other side of the country that few get to see. Certainly it wasn’t apparent to me, as a casual observer. But the psychiatrist had no need to lie, or exaggerate.

Yin and Yang – everything eventually comes back into balance.

Tourism –
Tourism is tightly controlled, which is a good thing – because only then will the very delicate energy of this mystical place be maintained.

The way tourism is controlled is through the imposition of fees for entering the country – stiff fees – and you’re required to have a guide. And you’ll need a car and driver too. It’s not the kind of place where you can get around on your own.

So if you want to visit Bhutan it’s going to cost you a big chunk of change, and that weeds out a lot of people.

Buddhism –
Buddhism is everywhere. And you see robed Buddhist monks most everywhere.

The Bhutanese take their religion seriously, although the serious ones point out that it’s not in fact a religion, it;s a way of walking through the world each day.

There’s no doubt that the gentle and very caring nature of the Bhutanese has been forged through a strong commitment to Buddhism.

Sites & Scenery –
Bhutan is a stunningly beautiful country, and it’s still relatively untouched.

There is a simple unadorned charm to the place, and I hope it stays that way.

Our last full day in Bhutan.

We drove back to Thimphu, on that shocking road. Maybe because we’d already been blooded, it didn’t seem so bad this time. But it was still 3hrs+.

We did though drive through some very beautiful countryside. Rice is one of Bhutan’s staples, and it’s also a big export commodity. The fields are also stunning…

Then we had to drive another one and a half hours to Paro to interview The Master.

The Master is a Bhutanese spiritual leader, and a spiritual advisor to the Royal Family. He lives up high on a mountain top, near his monastery – and it was a hairy drive to get to his residence.

His living room was full of fascinating stuff –

But we did the interview upstairs, in what he called his mini-temple.

The interview was all in Bhutanese, but Kezang our guide did a translation after each question, which worked fine. The Master will have to be subtitled in the film.

He spoke from a learned and scholarly Buddhist perspective, and told me that the voice I heard which warned me of an impending car crash was the voice of a God that I was born with.

Everyone is born with this God, he said, and it’s this God’s task to protect you and try to guide you through life.

I asked The Master why then do so many people die in car crashes, if everyone has a God that’s tasked with protecting that person?

The Master said it might be their destiny to die at that time, but it also might be a result of past life karma. He said the reason I wasn’t killed was probably because I still had work to do on this plane – good work. He also said that I must have accumulated some good past life karma.

Whew….

The Master also said that some people don’t listen to their God when it tries to communicate with them – and they do so at their peril. This God communicates via voices, through feelings or also “coincidences” or signs, but also most powerfully through dreams.

The Master said we should take our dreams seriously, because they come to us for a reason.

I asked him what advice could he give to those in the West who might want to access their intuitive guidance – and he said that they had to act with right body, right speech, and right mind. And they had to trust these voices. These feelings.

All up it was a fascinating interview.

At the end of the interview he donned his ceremonial hat for some photos. Then we went downstairs and had bowls of rice and sultanas, with sweet white tea. This is all part of the ritual of saying thanks to a guest.

We left his residence feeling as though we’d not only captured a very important interview, but we’d also met someone who was, truly, a Buddhist Master…

I posted some shots of our filming in Bhutan yesterday, and it occurred to me that some of you might be thinking – how can you make a movie with such a minuscule crew?

Well, you can, if you know what you’re doing, and you work with good people.

In the mid 80s, I made a feature film with a crew of 7. The crew was so small that in the end credits, I had to make up crew positions and names because otherwise the end credit roller would have lasted twenty seconds!

The film was called BACKLASH. It was shot on Super 16, and was invited into Official Selection at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

I didn’t realise at the time just how prestigious that was.

The screenings were a sellout, and in fact at the final screening I had Smauel Goldwyn Jnr come up to me pleading to get him a seat!

BACKLASH then was invited into every major festival around the world, and the Samuel Goldwyn Company then released the film theatrically in North America. The film subsequent got a theatrical release world wide.

I remember, before that first screening in Cannes, I was taken into the huge Festival du Palais cinema, where the film was to be shown later that evening. At Cannes, the organisers do a rehearsal with the filmmaker before the screening, to check sound levels and the luminance of the screen and so forth.

The only other festival where I’ve experienced that technical attention to detail was at the New York Film Festivsl, with a later film called KISS OR KILL.

Anyway I remember at that rehearsal, in the huge Palais cinema, totally empty – just me and the Festivsl organisers and the technical crew – getting up onto that massive stage, and as the first reel screened I lay on my back on that stage and looked up at my movie.

It was a sequence which I’d shot with two actors and two crew – cameraman and soundman, plus myself as director. And here it was, that sequence shot in the remote outback, about to be screened on this gigantic screen to the world’s greatest cinephiles.

What astonished me at that moment is that it took only two actors, and two crew, to capture that filmic sequence.

Same with PGS.

I don’t need a big crew to make this film. With technology now, with advances in cameras, post production workflow, computer graphic imaging etc, it’s even easier than when I made BACKLASH

But…

… to make a great film you have to have a great story, and you have to know how to tell that story.

That’s hard.

I don’t know what fate lies in store for PGS – but right from the start I’ve listened to my intuition in the making of the film, and will continue to do so.

It’s taken me this far, so far…

I’m just the tillerman guiding this vessel of light downstream, trying to avoid the hidden rocks and shoals along the way, trying to take it safely to its destination…

… which is you.