ITV Whicker's World - An Impression of Bombay - Parts 3 and 4 (1978)

Whicker's World is a British television documentary series that ran from 1958 to 1994, presented by journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker.

Whicker and his crew visited the Pune One ashram in early June 1978 and created, in the final product, about 18 minutes of coverage of Osho and sannyasins. It was aired on Nov 7 1978 at 22:30, as part of a larger concept of a "four-part" series on the Bombay area. Thus the ashram's 18 min was about 1/3 of the whole program of 53:34 min, which ran as "parts three and four" of the Bombay series, shortly after "parts one and two", which ran from 21:00 to 22:00.

timings

00:00 to 01:02 intro common to all episodes, Whicker striding and traveling in boat, train and plane to and in exotic places, with triumphant theme music

01:03 to 06:34 coverage of a group of mainly Western Hare Krishnas at their temple in Juhu, Mumbai. Most of this segment consists of them answering his questions.

06:35 to 07:35 Gateless Gate, Smoking temple and other social scenes with Sufi dancing music and Whicker's voice-over intoning about Indian ashrams competing as resorts to attract Western disciples ... the "Swami of Sex", etc. We have arrived!

07:36 to 12:46 voice-over continues into darshan, people entering, having to pass by the sniffers, Maneesha and Radha. Whicker himself gets sniffed out and though allowed to enter with a scarf, he complains a lot and grills Maneesha about this whole sniffing thing. ("The Bhagwan or God has asthma, or maybe he's just sensitive about the ashram's lack of toilet facilities" plus other snide comments.) "He claims to be a god and to have 60,000 followers". The darshan segment shown is the arrival darshan of Sw Deva Rashid, his wife Rashida and their two children, coming to stay forever. That night was Jun 1 1978.

12:47 to 20:02 chatting with a group of mainly English sannyasins in the juice bar (Vrindavan?), all jolly and irreverent.

20:03 to 24:45 interview with Krishna Prem

24:46 to 25:17 (end) Sufi dancing

tbc

language

English

released

broadcast Nov 7 1978 at 10:30 pm

length

53:34 min