Geeta’s Guide to Moving On
Geeta’s Guide to Moving On (2018)
Created, starring, written, produced, and directed by: Puja
In Geeta’s Guide to Moving On, Puja explores the universal theme of heartbreak and family from the perspective of an Indian-American woman. The 12-episode series, released in two parts, is among the most ambitious released in the early years of OTV.
When her first web series, Friendly Confines, lost its location and a key team member, Puja returned to work on her novel and solo show, A Great Dive. However, when she couldn’t find a theater to self-produce the play, she pivoted and produced her next web series instead, Geeta’s Guide To Moving On.
In this comedic series, Puja tells the story of Geeta who is dumped by her fiance. This happens quite early, and so the series focuses on the ways her friends and family, as well as dance, help her to regain a sense of self.
The roots of the show lie in Puja’s personal experience with heartbreak and the ways her culture both supported and challenged her healing.
“I created the show because I was going through a massive breakup, moved back in with my Indian parents, and realized that there was this inherent conflict because they didn't know how to navigate it because they had an arranged marriage and had never gone through a breakup or fallen in love,” she said in a post-screening conversation.
Puja filmed the series in stages, releasing three episodes on OTV and then going back to film an additional nine episodes a year later. Between the first three episodes and the last nine, she lost two key cast members. However, she continued the series, after re-casting the roles of Akua and Geeta’s Mom.
After the first 3 episodes, she thought she would look at the data and metrics to decide whether she would produce more episodes.
However, a few days after the OTV premiere, one of her team members asked her, “Would you regret it for the rest of your life if you didn’t make the rest?”
The answer for her was a resounding yes, and it was in that moment that she committed to completing the project. She never checked the metrics, and she still doesn’t know the data around her show.
Some of the cinematically satisfying scenes in the series are when Geeta dances to release her pain, a reflection of how the arts have shaped Puja’s experience.
“This web series is really a combination of everything that I do. I got into the arts as a dancer, I went to school for writing, and then I went back to school again for theater, for acting,” she said in an interview.
But by the far the breakout stars of the series – beyond Puja and Danielle Pinnock, who would later become known for the #HashtagBooked instagram sketch series and the hit TV series, Ghosts, on CBS– are the Aunties, who are played by Puja’s actual aunties. In the show they serve as a kind of Greek chorus, offering pearls of wisdom and occasional critique as spiritual guides on Geeta’s journey. When WGN-TV Chicago invited the project to appear on the show, it was the Aunties who were interviewed and featured. Puja rooted them on off-camera, so grateful that these immigrant women–the Aunties–had the microphone for the first time.
“In my life they're like the backbone of our families,” Puja said. “The CEOs of our families. The backbone of our community. And these women are so strong, and so resilient, and so wise; and yet in mainstream media I have not heard their voice.”
Instead, Puja sees more stereotypes of Indian and Brown people in media, disproportionately led by men and not women.
“I’ve heard the Indian cab driver, I’ve heard the South Asian terrorist. I’ve seen a lot of a men’s voices, but I haven't seen a lot of South Asian women’s voices on screen, particularly immigrant women. And they are so wise. They're actually, I feel, to me, the whole world, the whole family is so integrated into my understanding and vision of what America is.”
But these political concerns over representation are not Puja’s primary motivation, which is to tell stories about love and family that transcend identity lines. Her production company, Rainbow Productions, is anchored in the values of Love, Light, Laughs, and Seva, or Service. Rainbow Productions is dedicated to celebrating and amplifying lightworker narratives.
“As far as writing I would say, I will always write with comedy and heart. I want my work to live at the intersection of entertainment, education, and enlightenment.”
Top 12 Things I Wish I Knew At The Beginning of My Filmmaker Journey
by Puja Mohindra
1. Get representation, whether it’s an agent, manager, or excellent attorney. If you’re not able to secure representation, do some research on people you would like to work with. This way, when an offer comes in for your project, you have a few names to call and are ready to field the interest.
2. Work with your friends, aka Let Yourself Be Showered With Love, as Dr. Roth says. Working with your friends invites people who care about you into the process. There’s a built-in trust, a short-hand with communication, and makes the process easier and more fun. Plus, it’s more likely that your friends will read your project in early stages of development and offer to help bring it to life.
3. The Importance of Rest! The best ideas and highest creativity come in a relaxed state of mind. Replace a hustle approach with more time and space to restore yourself. This also tunes us into our inner guidance and intuition.
4. Help others. Filmmaking is a communal sport. Find your tribe. Everyone’s dream is your dream. It’s all the same dream. Support others on their journey, and reach out for help with your own projects. One of my favorite proverbs is: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
5. When it comes to financing, ask everyone you know for help. You never know who will express interest and want to get behind and invest in your project. Get comfortable asking for money and be confident when asking, because you and your vision are worthy of it. If you need to work on your relationship to money and abundance, do that. Inner shifts will shift your outer reality, as it relates to the project.
6. Appreciate the Beauty. The more you see and appreciate beauty and artistry in others, the more we’re able to integrate it into our own creations.
7. Throw spaghetti at the wall, and let the Universe Decide. For example, if you’re casting your lead, and you don’t know whether to send it to one actor or another, send it to both. If both say yes to the same role, you can deal with solving that later. Embrace the abundance!
8. Meditate and/or sit in silence to tap into non-linear, out-of-the-box thinking and solutions. It was in meditation, that I was guided to send a script to a two-time Oscar-nominated director, and after sending, he said yes to direct. Make time for spiritual reflection, to be guided in your journey.
9. Find opportunities for intersectionality and co-existence. We often feel like we need to choose between this location and that location, or this actor and that actor. Work with all of them! If you like working with two people, explore ways to partner up to include all of your favorite artists.
10. Trust The Timeline & Be In Receiving Mode. Work with what you have,and you’ll have more. When people love on your project, those are your people! Find ways to integrate them into the process, and watch it soar. And if/when the process takes longer to create than you’d like, trust the timing. In the long run, a project is always better because of its delays.
11. Only you know what your story is and when it’s time to shoot your script. As you receive notes, apply the ones that resonate and inspire, that deepen, clarify, and enhance your story. And when it’s time to stop taking notes, you’ll know.
12. When in doubt about a choice to make for your project, do what’s most in service to the project. Lead with love!