6 July marks the release of the widely anticipated Netflix series Sacred Games. Based on a book of the same name and described as ‘a story of betrayal, glamour and grit that’s set against the ever changing backdrop of Mumbai’, its forthcoming release has excited a good few of our students. All the more reason, then, for the College to be absolutely delighted to welcome back Vasant Nath (Eddies 2001), one of the series’ writers.

In June, Vasant came to visit the College and he took the time to discuss life at Eddies, his career so far, and his current and planned projects, with a small group of keen current students. Particularly pleasing for the Development Office to hear was the informal support given by St Edmund’s to nurture Vasant’s creative interests – from former Master of the College Brian Heap asking him how things were going from time to time, to occasionally receiving a small amount of money at random in his pigeon hole to help fund his creative endeavours. St Edmund’s prides itself on its solidarity between Members and it was refreshing to hear that this has been the case for quite some time.

He also talked at some length about the different jobs he had undertaken to get where he is today – notably one project where he had to carry out a lot of research for an India-Japan crossover film. Cross-cultural and global thinking is something that Vasant alluded to time and time again, hardly surprising for Cambridge’s most diverse College. He spoke about his time at Cambridge where one of his good friends came from Pakistan, a relationship that for an Indian would be much more difficult within South Asia. Vasant noted that for a time there was also a lot of collaboration between Indian and European filmmakers and it is from this that his friendship with Berlin-based Michael Henrichs began to blossom, who accompanied him on his trip back to Cambridge and with whom he is working on his own personal film project, ‘Sebastian wants to remember’.

The students present also had time to engage Vasant with questions of their own. These ranged from questions about Sacred Games to questions about expressing yourself in different languages, and how to overcome mental blocks in creative thinking. The discussion felt personal, warm, and deeply engaging all at the same time. We learned from Vasant that St Edmund’s used to hold such talks regularly, referred to as Conversazione – maybe this concept is due a revival as we enter the next academic year?

Thank you very much Vasant for visiting us. You are always welcome back to the College!

If you are reading this and interested in coming to share with current students insights from your career then please do not hesitate to get in touch with the St Edmund’s Development Office on development@st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk. Likewise, if you think you could make a small contribution to support the next generation of young men and women with creative ambitions like Vasant, why not consider making a gift to the Eddies Fund?