GURU

A documentary by Robert Wilkins

GURU, 28 minutes, offers never before seen insights into the life of celebrated 90-year-old ashtanga yoga guru Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.
Jois, whose students include Madonna, and who is featured in the next issue of 'Vanity Fair' magazine is certainly a hip guru...But having devoted himself selflessly to yoga throughout his life, is he happy with the accolades of the past few years? What does he actually think of his ’foreign’ students with their yoga dreams? What do his Western devotees get out of travelling all the way to India to see him? Some would go as far as to say he is an enlightened being…

This film's narrative is structured around preparations and celebration of Sri Pattabhi Jois's 90th birthday in India last year, attended by a cavalcade of international guests. Jois provides philosophical insights along the way...We also meet his family who discuss how hard it was to grow up with such a focussed father, and we meet his followers, the yoga teachers and yogi travellers some of whom have been coming to Jois since the late 70's.

An insightful, humorous and touching look into the guru/ student relationship...

GURU is voiced by popular UK narrator Zam Baring (‘Going to Extremes’ Channel 4), and includes the music of Indian flautist Alex Housego who has recorded with Nithin Sawnhey and Michael Jackson. It is filmed on high definition DVCAM.
 
Director Robert Wilkins has been making documentaries for over 10 years covering subjects as diverse as Al Jazeera London for BBC 4’s ‘The Desk’, forensic science for The Discovery Channel, ‘Mummy Autopsy’, and the award winning ‘Calling Young Hong Kong’ about the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China as told from a young person’s perspective. He edited GURU in his lounge-room on Final Cut Pro.

This film is shot entirely on location in India featuring British characters. It explores contemporary relations between Britain and India through the lens of the International yoga community.

Exploring the essence of having a guru

An unlikely candidate has joined the long list of yoga enthusiasts: none other than Blair boy Peter Mandelson. While Mandelson got introduced to it in Brussels, pop queen Madonna became fanatical about yoga in LA and tantric sex guru Sting in London. We all have heard of ex spice girl Geri Halliwell and her yoga stint. But not many outside the yoga world have heard about the man who made yoga so popular: Sri Pattabhi Jois. The 90-year-old guru, created one of the most popular forms of yoga: Asthanga Yoga. He will be in London next week as the chief guest at the screening of film Guru by London based filmmaker Robert Wilkins which captures the thousand year old guru-shishya parampara.
 
Two years ago Wilkins started practicing yoga out of curiosity and in a year’s time, he became a serious yoga student. So fascinated was he by the Ashtanga form that he spent three months in Mysore, India, last year, filming the documentary, and practicing yoga with Jois.
There was an added incentive as in July Jois celebrated his 90th birthday. Over 500 students descend from all over the world, instantly busying themselves with buying saris and gifts for the yogi party of the century. Pattabhi Jois, has a huge international following. It’s questions like “What does he think of all his foreign students?” And “What is it that all these students are seeking to find?” that made Wilkins take up the project. 

“There’s so much information around these days – just google it and find out – then why do we never seem to learn anything anymore? Perhaps no-one’s teaching us?” questions Wilkins.

”The Indians have found an answer in the guru system,” he reasons, “Put trust in the guru (once you have found the right one) and he/she will take you on a journey  - of transformation – from darkness into light. This film offers never before seen insights into the life of 90 year old ashtanga yoga guru Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.”

The documentary explores a very different side to yoga, one which is not sold in the West. There is intimate footage of Jois and his grandson Sharath Rangaswamy teaching traditional method Ashtanga yoga from their ‘shala’ at the AYRI (Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute) in India. There may be many more students these days, but the yoga stays the same as always.

Yogi Rolf Naujokat explains, “These outer changes have no affect on my practice, very simple. I stand up in the morning, do my sitting, and I get ready for going to the shala. It has been before like that and it is now like that.”

In the documentary Wilkins meets the yogi travelers, devoted students who take their study of the Ashtanga form to an extreme, elevating it to a kind of artform. “For the dedicated, yearly trips to Mysore are a must. Learn that yoga extends beyond the system of the postures or asanas which most of us associate... And into philosophy, spirituality and the very system of pedagogy or guru-shishya (the teacher-student relationship),” He stresses.