ROYALTY AT HOME

This documentary centers on Suraj and Ramani, an Indian-American couple in their seventies who, for more than four decades, have quietly opened their home to international students arriving in Syracuse. What began as informal hospitality grew into a lifelong commitment: shared meals, holiday gatherings, emergency support, mentorship, and a sense of family for students far from home. Their house functions as an unofficial sanctuary, where strangers arrive as students and leave as lifelong kin.

 

The film unfolds primarily in and around their home, using the present day as a lens to reflect on the past. Through intimate interviews, everyday observations, and stories from former students now living across the world, the documentary traces how this sustained practice of welcome shaped not only the lives of the students, but also the couple’s own family, faith, and sense of purpose. Archival photographs, letters, and memories help bridge decades of experience without relying on heavy exposition.

 

Rather than framing this as a program or institution, the film focuses on lived practice. It asks how care, repeated over time, becomes legacy. By staying close to moments of cooking, conversation, prayer, and quiet reflection, the documentary reveals how one ordinary home became a global point of connection, belonging, and continuity.