God In Human Form

God in Human Form – How it came about.

After some conversation a few years ago, Lindesay Reiter and I began obsessing about the need for a comprehensive video-film of Baba’s life and work. Though many films have been done through the years, they seemed to be more focused on either a particular subject or viewpoint, or a particular time in Baba’s life, often due to available film footage.

    For those of us who’ve had the great opportunity to spend time with those who spent so much time with Him, we have enjoyed imbibing Baba’s life in little bits and pieces, here and there from time to time. But with the responsibilities of every day life in this day and age of attention deficit disorder, it is easy to forget the details of all the little pictures that add up to the big picture. It is as if many of us often look closely at some part of the story, but fail to step back and look at the huge beautiful mural and masterpiece that is Baba’s life and work.

     The day we arrived in India about a year and a half ago, the Trust received a letter from some of the Andhra Baba-lovers concerning an opportunity to present a twenty  minute introductory segment about Meher Baba for Indian television in the Telugu language. They had no idea how to proceed regarding script and presentation and were asking for assistance. As the letter was passed from one qualified person to another, each of whom had their reasons for not getting involved, it eventually was directed to me. Being a plumber I understand the flow of things, and so in the tradition of the college of Meher Baba I was the right person for the job. After reading the letter I was sure that Baba’s life and work could not be fairly represented in that limited time, but I thought that it would be fun to at least make an attempt. The only person with some training in film making there was Laurel Beymer, so I asked her if she could just help me for a few hours to get started. In 8 – 10 hours we came up with a script for an English speaking Indian audience that read exactly 24 minutes, but nothing ever happened with Indian television. Debbie and I left India soon after and didn’t do much with the script until we returned to Meherabad the next year - last December, 2002.  On our return to India, due to severe back trouble, I had to spend a lot of time in a horizontal position, so to occupy myself I decided to look at the script again and fill in what I had considered to be just an expanded outline.  I thought it was important to abandon the time element, and with the conviction that Baba’s life is most interesting and dynamic, why not let the Silent One speak for Himself?

     I wanted to present Baba’s life and work on His own terms, and in His own words as much as possible. The challenge was what to include in a comprehensive biographical introduction without overwhelming the first time viewer with too much information. Kebi and Ralph (Brown) came and stayed with us during Amartithi, so I decided to take advantage of Ralph’s skills. (He is related to screen writers as you may know, which makes him more qualified than me to determine what is a decent script.) Over the next week Ralph and I worked over the script, editing details. A few days after Kebi and Ralph left, my sister Jeanne and her husband Bruce Felknor arrived for their stay through Baba’s Birthday. Since I had remodeled a kitchen for them a few years ago, I decided to take advantage of any possible feeling of obligation my brother-in-law may still have had and asked him to do the narration for the film. John Gunn, an excellent sound engineer, who spends half the year living in India with his wife, Carol, agreed to record the narration after I told him it would probably take less than an hour. We finished recording the narration two hours before Bruce and Jeanne left Meherabad. After John was sucked into the project, he agreed to also record some music, and was able to get the beautiful recording you will hear of Rustom and Sohrab  (Baba’s nephews) singing Mehera’s favorite Huma ghazal. Mahmoud Arjang was able to persuade Farid Farjad’s people to allow us to use the violinist’s beautiful Persian music at no cost. For some of the other pieces of music I decided to recruit two other brothers-in-law, Dave D’Angelo and Mark Falchook, both professional musicians. (I had remodeled a bathroom for Dave and Denise a few years ago and decided to take advantage again.) Debbie wrote out the arrangements and they were able to record five songs in one morning at Phil Ludwig’s New Jersey studio. In Colorado Richard Slavich and Kitty Knight recorded a beautiful cello duet of “Begin the Beguine” specifically for the end of the film.

     To accomplish the film editing, we needed somebody with the combination of technical skills, a good eye for the work, and a fine artistic sense. Bob Fredericks agreed to do the job, putting in months of excellent work for this labor of love. Our goal was to properly blend the three elements so that with the narration as the foundation and the music as the fusion, the intellectual mind of the viewer could be disarmed to allow the heart to absorb the images of God in human form. It will appear that great time and effort was taken to synchronize Baba’s images with narration and music, but we were often astounded by the way the elements would perfectly come together. We have made our best efforts in providing photographs and footage to correspond with the different periods of Baba’s life, but in some cases it was not possible.

     We hope that everyone will enjoy seeing the film half as much as we enjoyed making it.  

  Peter Nordeen, Aug. 18, 2003