AustLit

Transcendental Pastimes 'brings a western film crew to Hemagiri, a dusty mining town perched on granite hills and surrounded by the jungle of the deep South of Tamil Nadu. They are a colourful bunch - the cramped English Director, Jonathan Bexley, fleeing a failed marriage; uptight Carol, his feminist assistant; Gino, a macho Italo-Australian; Terry, his Irish mate; and Brian, the sensitive, withdrawn New Age asthmatic - but they find themselves disturbed and challenged by their encounter with the dangerous, mystifying and bizarre beauty of South India.

'Bexley's crew have come to make a documentary on the renowned Guru Chinnaswami, who claims to remember his past lives and talks of God as the "Cosmic Magician". But as they journey with the Guru into a world of strange happenings and mystical revelations, they become more and more entangled in the lives and troubles of the Hemagiri people, their sufferings and their romances. It is a path that brings satisfaction to some but which eventually leads both the Guru and his Western guests to confront the sinister face of modern-day terrorism in the lead-up to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.' (Publisher's blurb)