Some dreams do come true.
It has always been my wish that my first book, Meeting Shiva – Falling and Rising in Love in the Indian Himalayas, would one day become a meaningful film — one created by a director who truly understands the message of transformation at the heart of this deeply personal journey.
Ten years ago, I already received an offer from Hollywood, but I turned it down. Their aim was to make something sensational out of a story that is anything but. The deeper context wasn’t seen — and so, I said no. Back then, I told my rather disgruntled publisher that I trusted one day an independent film director with integrity would come along — someone who would make something deep and meaningful out of my book.
And that’s exactly what happened, about ten years later, when I least expected it. It was in the aftermath of my father’s death, while I was stuck in dark, grey Germany, that I received an email from an independent director, once again from Hollywood, who had recently read Meeting Shiva and asked whether I had ever considered turning it into a film.
I googled her name and immediately felt excited. She was a socially conscious visionary who, among other films, had already made a beautiful short movie about Varanasi — a city I have a special bond with. Shortly after, we had a Zoom call and even met up for a night in Frankfurt to have dinner and get to know each other. A few months later, the contracts were signed, and now the project is ready to begin.
IIt feels right that it took this long. Both the story and I needed to ripen — and so, it seems, did the world. In the years since I wrote the book, society has grown more sensitive to trauma and the deeper processes of healing. There truly is a right timing for everything, and when we honour that, things unfold with their own quiet grace.
This applies to all of life: not settling, not doing something merely for money or fame, but waiting instead for what feels right and carries integrity.
As Shams of Tabriz reminds us in The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak:
“God is a meticulous clockmaker. So precise is His order that everything on earth happens in its own time — neither a minute late nor a minute early. And for everyone without exception, the clock works accurately. For each there is a time to love and a time to die.”