Mahesh Bhatt on his mother Shrin: ‘The woman who belonged everywhere’

The filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt met the philosopher UG Krishnamurti sometime in the 1970s. Bhatt went on to become one of Krishnamurti’s most ardent followers, writing several books on him. The latest is The Ashes Are Warm – Memories of a Lifetime Spent with UG Krishnamurti (Rupa Publications).

“He was standing at the top of the staircase, clad in white,” Bhatt writes about his first meeting with Krishnamurti, who was also known as UG. “And as if walking through a tunnel, I began to climb toward him. His luminous face slowly eclipsed everything around me. A volcanic silence blazed through my gut. The clamour of the city receded into the background.”

The book doubles up as Bhatt’s own memoir. In the chapter excerpted below, Bhatt, the son of filmmaker Nanabhai Bhatt, writes about his mother Shirin. Bhatt created a character based on his mother in his award-winning film Zakhm (1998). Bhatt’s daughter, Pooja Bhatt, plays Noor, a Muslim woman who marries a Hindu director and hides her faith from her children. Noor’s reality is revealed through tragedy: she is killed during a communal riot.

She was never just one thing. Not to herself. Not to us. Not even to ‘God’.

In the Shivaji Park flat where I grew up, the walls carried no...

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