Ma Prem Pankaja
(Dinah Brooke)
Pankaja was born in 1936 in Scunthorpe, England. She took sannyas in 1975 and presently lives in London. Before taking sannyas she was a novelist, but has since become a film-maker, specializing in documentaries. Osho answered many of her questions in discourse. One especially piquant hit she reports: when asking him about "talking away my creativity", she received comments like "third rate, trashy novels".
From the "About" page of her film website:
In the late 1950’s I studied film for a year at the first London Film School in Electric Avenue, Brixton, then joined Samaritan Films, a small documentary company in Soho. I worked with some amazing film makers, like Kevin Brownlow and John Krish, however the union was a closed shop back then and after few years I still didn’t manage to get in, so decided to write novels instead – of which 4 were published.
I then spent many years in India at the ashram of the enlightened mystic Osho, and continued to do so after his death in 1999.
On a visit to Tibet in 1986 my camera was stolen, and I found that all the footage I had already shot was blank – so decided this was not a medium for me, and didn’t pick up a camera again for almost 30 years. In 2008 I visited a Chinese Kung Fu Master with my friend Veena Schlegel, and thought it would be a good idea to document the Kung Fu, so bought a cheap camcorder. Later on that trip I went back to India, and visited a Ramana’s Garden a Children’s Home in Rishikesh, north India, started by another friend Deva Dwabha, and filmed some of the children there. I returned to both places several times and continued to document their work.
Luckily, in the digital age it is now possible to edit and produce a finished film at home, on ones own computer – though at first the guys in the Apple shops were a great help. I did at onetime buy a professional camera, but basically found that a high end Camcorder was much easier to handle if you are doing everything yourself.
So I have been making short documentary films for the past 12 years, usually in places where I happen to be travelling, and with friends, or with people I know, and about issues that I’m interested in. Most of the films have been shown at various film festivals around the world.
Contact Details
- address
- phone
- website
- descriptions and embedded videos, including many of her short documentary projects, shot mostly in far-flung Asian locations
- bibliography
- 2023 : Lord Jim at Home
- filmography
- see also
- her story, as told in Bhagawati's book, Past the Point of No Return
- Osho News search results, many stories featuring her
