During his break from acting, Roache has been to India periodically, he says, spending three months there at one point. He had a specific purpose for his trip - to attend a retreat hosted by American guru Andrew Cohen, whose "evolutionary enlightenment" philosophy came out of his study of Buddhism and Hinduism.

Director James Ivory, one-half of the Merchant-Ivory legendary filmmaking duo - the other half being producer and director Ismail Merchant, told Torrance that a producer whom he and his editor knew showed him a cut of the film.

"I was impressed by the sweep of it and the authenticity of it," he says, and so he lent his production company's name to the release.

Ivory was born in California and grew up in Oregon, but his first films were documentaries about India.

"One of them I made without even going to India," he told the Washington Times. "It was an interest of mine that developed, in Indian art and music and life."