The Guru is a 1969 film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory.
Contents
Plot
A young pop-star, Tom Pickle (Michael York), travels to India to learn to play the sitar with the musician Ustad Zafar Khan (as George Harrison did when he studied under Ravi Shankar). Khan (Utpal Dutt) is not happy with his disciple but still takes him to Benares to meet his own guru. Throughout, Pickle struggles with the humility and meekness needed to study Indian music under a guru. Towards the end, Pickle returns to England but with a young English girl (Rita Tushingham) whom he met while in India.
Cast
The following actors played a role in the movie,
Rita Tushingham as Jenny
Michael York as Tom Pickle
Utpal Dutt as Ustad Zafar Khan
Madhur Jaffrey as Begum Sahiba
Barry Foster as Chris
Aparna Sen as Ghazala
Zohra Sehgal as Mastani
Saeed Jaffrey as Murad
Box office
Twentieth Century Fox offered to finance the movie, after Merchant Ivory had to shelve two other film projects. According to Fox records, the film required $1,675,000 in theatrical rentals to break even. By December 1970, it had only made $625,000 in rentals, causing the studio to take a loss. This was equivalent to estimated box office gross receipts of approximately $2 million.