But what draws us to this post is the connection between India and the movie, well, actually, the book, considering that the egg did come before the dud. Whoever said golf in India only goes as far back as the Scots who used to hack their way around the plains of Dum Dum in Kolkata in the early 1800s. The author of the book, Steven Pressfield, was so inspired by the Bhagavad Gita, at a time when he was struggling to pay off his rents, he decided to adapt it to a new novel.
Bhagavan, quite literally, came into his life-:
Bhaga became Bagger and van became Vance so Bhagavan became Bagger Vance. And just like Krishna guided Arjuna through the battle, Bagger Vance took it upon himself to revive Rannulph Junnuh's (name inspired by Arjuna) life, the protagonist, from being a drunken outcast to finding his way back into the people's heart by competing alongside Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in an "epic" golf match on the Krewe Island(name inspired by, yup, you guessed it right-- Kurukshetra).
When it was announced that the book would be turned into a movie, there was a group that filed a case, saying that the movie "may hurt religious sentiments", and they were very concerned about how "god would be portrayed in the film". The National Council of Hindu Temples put out a statement saying, "Bagger Vance is a distortion of the Hindu word for God. Hindus will find it offensive to see Will Smith on the screen being called what is basically the word for god."
Do people get concerned, worried and offended too easily these days? The case was dismissed and the movie went on to be screened without a problem.
There was another book trying to ascertain the link between the Bhagavad Gita and golf. It was titled Gita on the Green: The Mystical Tradition Behind Bagger Vance.
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