Starry sights for Pundit Neil

HE IS rubbing shoulders with the most beautiful women and the most powerful men in Bollywood and Hollywood. Yet the Trinidad-born Neil Prashad maintains a humble disposition as he goes about his duty as vice president of Bala Entertainment International (BEI). He is second to the popular film maker Mira Nair who gave us the award-winning film Monsoon Wedding. He has an office in Mumbai and another in New York, and he is busy meeting with producers and working with technical staff on filming many of the Bollywood’s productions in locations out of India. Pundit Neil is here in TT for a series of lectures in St Augustine.

Coming from very humble beginnings, Neil was born in Trinidad of a Guyanese father and Trinidadian mother and was raised in New York. His mother is a nurse in New York and his father is also a pundit. He followed in his father’s footsteps, studying Hinduism and speaking on spiritual matters at some of the world’s most outstanding platforms with Dr Deepak Chopra, the Dalai Lama, among others. He also pursues other non-spiritual objectives. He attended public school in New York and completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology at York College. While delivering a motivational lecture, he had an inner calling to seek a career in entertainment. So, he cancelled higher studies for a PhD at Columbia University to accept a job as president of Steven Seagal’s company in Brentwood, California. He began his entertainment career there as an executive with the action hero and negotiated major deals with Warner Bros, such as Exit Wounds, Half Past Dead, Romeo Must Die, and many more. He spent the last six years in Hollywood working with other entertainers and for charities which included those associated with golfer Tiger Woods and boxing legend Muhammed Ali.

Today, Neil is fast becoming one of the biggest names in the Indian entertainment (film and music) world, Bollywood, where he has been based for the last two years. He is taking Asian cinema and India entertainment particularly into mainstream audiences globally. However, he said that he is making a move from his major role as an executive producer in the mainstream Hollywood film business, where he launched his career in entertainment several years ago. He now straddles the two entertainment worlds, pursuing his goal of increasing the Indo-Caribbean presence in the entertainment industry. Neil’s involvement in cinema combines East and West, and he is one of a few people in the field who has experience working in both Bollywood and Hollywood. He gained enormous experience working with Bollywood personalities over the last 18 months. Neil says he was always fascinated by the entertainment industry, but the glamour of Hollywood or Bollywood was not what motivated him to leave New York. Rather, it was the desire to pursue his own career and to promote Indian cinema in English-speaking countries.

“My presence in Bollywood is driven by a desire to promote Indo-Caribbean in the entertainment industry.” He said that BEI is looking to produce three or more films on Asians, including the Indian diaspora communities (such as Indo-Caribbeans) over the next three years. “BEI will be producing Asian films that will explore local and Caribbean talent,” he said. “Nair intends to harness resources from her network of acting, performing talent, creative production personnel, talent agencies, distributors, sales agents, as well as film schools and products of film festivals.” BEI films will be distributed in the US, Canada, Europe and other mainstream theatres.

Neil explains: “BEI is a platform for promoting Asian cinema in the West. Cinema embraces international issues. Therefore, scripts will not necessarily be of an Asian story line. The film will be Asian films with English dialogue.” Neil is currently involved in discussions with TT’s producer and former radio announcer Hans Hanoomansingh about a local production entitled The Journey. The film tells of the hardship and difficulties experienced by the indentured labourers from India. His other projects include the making of Salutation, a film on the life and times of the great bhajan singer, Hari Om Sharan, who is now 80 years old. “Hari Om spent a significant number of years performing for the Caribbean people. He is more known in the Caribbean than in his homeland, India, and this is why his story must be told,” he said.