Very inspiring documentary! I knew that Narsinh Mehta had superb Bhakti-Yoga poems and was familiar with his Vaishnav Jan to. But I did not know the context at all. This insightful documentary provided it through the description of his life -the high birth, rebellion against the injust norms, and words flowing out of a blissful state. As Tushar Gandhi says, Vaishnav Jan to provides benchmarks for every spiritual journey. It also provides a compass to guide one during the long inner struggle as one cleans one's consciousness. I was struck with similarity between Narsinh Mehta's journey to bliss and that of the 13th century Sufi poet Yunus Emre who has left a lasting mark on Turkish literature and culture. Yunus went to the best Madarassa in the region and became a high-powered judge, only to give it all up in order to undertake the inner journey; was laughed at by contemporaries for the choices he made; had intense inner struggles; and then when he found bliss, beautiful words just poured out that are still taught in Turkish schools. Again Yunus' were "love poems" in the sense of the Indian Bhakti tradition. In the face of this wisdom, depth and spiritual beauty, I fail to understand why today's politicians both in India and Turkey continue to display intolerance and promote division in a spirit that is diagonally opposite to Vaishnav Jan to while, at the same time, praising these sages!
--Einstein Prize winning physicist Abhay Ashtekar.
