Showing posts with label Wild Wild Country. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild Wild Country. Show all posts
Ma Anand Sheela said, ‘People want to redeem themselves through me’-Shakun Batra
6:52 AM
Will Shakun Batra's Sheela match up to the hype and curiosity Wild Wild Country's Sheela drummed up? But, I am not competing, he clarifies. Can we accept a controversial figure for who she is when no one is watching, is the question he asks in a docu that traces her homecoming to India
Aastha Atray Banan (MID-DAY; April 25, 2021)
Searching For Sheela, which dropped last week on Netflix, is a medley of parties, events, talks, and panel discussions. At all of these happenings, curious eyes and tongues, some famous too, tend to pose the same set of questions to Ma Anand Sheela, 71. Did she attempt murder and plan a bio terror attack in Oregon in 1984 in order to incapacitate the voting population of The Dalles, Oregon, so that candidates from the commune she represented would win the Wasco County Elections? And why wasn’t she furious at her mentor, soulmate and religious leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho, after he publicly blamed and rejected her, even calling her a “prostitute”?
The Baroda-born Sheela Ambalal Patel, who is now a Swiss resident, was the chief spokesperson for the Rajneesh spiritual movement, following the leader from India to the US and playing a critical role as the commune’s power centre and his personal secretary from 1981 to 1985. In 1986, Sheela was tried for attempted murder and assault for her role in the 1984 Rajneeshee bio terror attack and was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, and paroled after a year following good behaviour.
It would seem that the director of the documentary, Shakun Batra (Kapoor & Sons), is the only one who doesn’t really care about the answers to the questions posed at Sheela, who captured global imagination with her “tough ti***ies” attitude and blasé disregard for authority, as portrayed wonderfully in the 2018 Netflix documentary, Wild Wild Country [WWC]. “What many people don’t know is that I knew of Sheela even before WWC [became a talking point]. My father used to listen to recordings of Osho’s discourses, like so many others in my family. I had met Sheela in Switzerland [where she moved in 1999, married fellow Rajneeshi Urs Birnstiel and continues to run nursing homes] before WWC. So, my head was judgment-free. I went into my film with a clean slate. Once WWC released, she was once again in the limelight after so many years. I was curious then to find out how one negotiated this journey with the weight on her shoulders. She came back to India after 35 years!” Batra’s familiarity with Sheela is evident in the way he adopts a non-obtrusive approach, revealing a softer side to the fire brand protagonist of WWC.
A clean slate is what Sheela appears to be looking for too, as she tackles journalists and celebrities on her India trip who clamour to extract spicy details about her past. If ex-Tehelka editor Shoma Chowdhury likens her own experience with the now infamous journalist-publisher and former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, Tarun Tejpal, to Sheela’s with Osho, Barkha Dutt asks Sheela why isn’t she more angry. Sheela is calm, smiling and not willing to share any dirt, and answers the questions with remarks that seem to say, “that’s what you feel, not me”. She seems to have made her peace with the past.
“They had so many questions for her—did you do it? How do you feel? She has lived with these questions. She has never hidden anything. In Switzerland, she often says, ‘she was living in a place where there were no opinions’. But Indians have so many opinions. It’s all about ‘cancel culture’—we decide how a person should react and what is the right reaction, and whether they deserve another chance,” Batra, 37, tells mid-day.
It’s a different Sheela we see through his lens—the maroon Osho robe replaced by Raw Mango ensembles, but admitting that she’d rather be at home in her pyjamas. This writer’s favourite moment from the docu is when she talks to her adopted daughter on video call, and tells her about all the “mee-mees” made about her (she means memes). Age and experience has made Sheela more like the wise grandmother you approach when in trouble. The fact that she has Bollywood producer-director Karan Johar, and Delhi socialites Malini and Bina Ramani, hosting dinners for her during the trip seems like a side effect. They all appear to be looking for their own version of Sheela. “I think everyone thought she had the answer, you know. It’s the reason we read Osho; we think we will find the answer to all our problems. You think you will meet Sachin Tendulkar, and he will tell you the trick [to acing cricket]. People think ‘if I can figure out her life, and her mistakes’, I can figure out mine’. She said, ‘People want to redeem themselves through me’. But, she also says, ‘life is the biggest teacher’. You can’t learn from her — you have to go through your own journey. But what she has done [here] is share insights on how to navigate life when people are watching. How can you be yourself? Can you forget all that’s happening, and be true to who you are. She teaches you how to do that,” says Batra.
In one shot, Sheela is seated on the swing of her Baroda home, where her father would read the letters she wrote the family from prison, her eyes moist. This is the Sheela Batra was hoping to find. He wants audiences to take away their own version of the “truth”. “We are pointing at bigger things like human nature and complexity. We don’t intend to offer answers or change the narrative; for me, that was never the job. I think there is so much more to learn from a life so extraordinary.”
I did not give Priyanka Chopra permission for biopic-Ma Anand Sheela
8:44 AM
Medha Shri Dahiya (HINDUSTAN TIMES; December 22, 2019)
Ma Anand Sheela or Sheela Biernstiel is one of the most popular millennial icons of our times. In the series Wild, Wild Country, she comes across as a redoubtable stateswoman who kicked up a storm in the media with her witty and provocative one-liners. But when you meet her, her warmth, calmness and soft words melt you. In the ’80s, she had the media chasing her. Cut to today, you have filmmakers wanting to make films on her. But what does she want? Here’s what the 70-year-old has to say:
We heard you want Alia Bhatt to portray you on screen. Have you seen any of her films?
I saw bits of a film that my sister was watching, and I thought I looked like her when I was young. I asked my sister, ‘Did I look like her when I was young? Do you remember’? And she said, ‘Yes, you do’. I feel she has the spunk in her that I had. Spunk is very necessary and it is very natural, it is not artificial, not cosmetic, it is genuine.
After Priyanka Chopra Jonas announced that she’d star in a biopic on you, you sent her a legal notice. Is that true?
I told her I do not give her permission to do [the] film because I have not chosen her... In Switzerland, we send legal notices very simply. I sent her an email which is accepted there as legal.
Have you heard back from Priyanka or team on that?
No, never. Not even a courtesy letter that they received my notice but that’s not an issue, maybe she never had the opportunity to meet me or make time to meet me and it is no big issue... not everybody has the time to meet me.
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Ma Anand Sheela, who lives in Switzerland, visited India after 34 years. And one has to be living under a rock to not know who she is. The Vadodara-born was spiritual guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho’s, personal secretary and the brain behind the ambitious Rajneeshpuram, a commune established in the 1980s in Oregon, USA, by and for his followers. It’s impressive to note that even in the ’80s, she had the guts to live life as she wanted to and totally own her story with all its vagaries including prison time and controversies.
“You all have to create your story and you have many ways to create it,” says Sheela, who was in India for Sipping Thoughts and the NGO Humans for Humanity. But living life on one’s own terms is not easy, is it? “Not easy is not a good excuse either... To not live life on your own terms is a very cowardly way to live. I know millennials are not cowards,” says the 70-year-old with conviction, adding, “Life is tough, baby. Life’s not easy. You have to go through your crisis, don’t look for easy, don’t make it easy for yourself. Easy is for cowards. Be brave. What you have to do, you must do — easy or different. Whatever difficulty comes, say, ‘Ah! I can do it’.”
But how does one stay calm in the midst of a storm, how did she manage it? “I don’t blame my crisis and catastrophes onto others. I take responsibility of my crisis, I try to analyse it, understand it, and I don’t put my burden on others,” she says. And if given a choice, would she change anything about her life? “No” she says, “I can tell you I love my life.”
Oh! We have to ask her, why is she not on Twitter? After the series, everyone tried to connect with her, and look her up on social media. She shares, “I belong to the old generation, I don’t understand this social media, I don’t understand computer even today.”
Pankaj Tripathi's character in Sacred Games 2 inspired by controversial godman Rajneesh Osho?
2:19 PM
After Netflix's Wild Wild Country, sources say Pankaj Tripathi's character in Sacred Games 2 inspired by controversial godman
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 25, 2019)
With only three weeks to go before the second season of Sacred Games drops online, fans are eagerly waiting to see the road ahead for Saif Ali Khan's Sartaj Singh and Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Ganesh Gaitonde. While the Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane-directed season had fleetingly touched upon Pankaj Tripathi's character, Guruji, the recently released trailer indicates that the character will enjoy a prominent run in the upcoming edition. Interestingly, it has been heard that Tripathi's godman character has been loosely mode
lled on Rajneesh Osho.A source close to the actor reveals, "Pankaj Tripathi's styling is almost similar to Rajneesh Osho, whose so-called religious movement was at its peak in the '80s. In terms of the writing too, Guruji's character seems to be woven like the cult figure." It may be recalled that the controversial godman was the subject of Netflix's popular documentary, Wild Wild Country.
For the uninitiated, Acharya Rajneesh, who had then acquired the moniker Bhagwan Acharya Rajneesh and Osho, had risen to prominence in the late '70s as a spiritual guru and the leader of Rajneesh movement. However, the controversial godman was later banned by several countries, including the US, when he and his followers were charged with a litany of crimes.
Aamir Khan keen to be a part of Shakun Batra’s Osho project?
8:18 AM
DNA (March 27, 2018)
There were rumours that Karan Johar will be making a movie on the life of spiritual guru, Bhagwan Rajneesh, who is also known as Osho. However, it has now come to light that the filmmaker was never planning to take this project on. But this isn’t the end of the story.
According to sources, Shakun Batra has apparently penned a script on the life of Osho that may be made for an international streaming channel as a web series. And none other than Aamir Khan is said to have shown interest in the project. An insider says, “Everyone knows what a great sense of script Aamir has. When he got to know about this one, it immediately piqued his interest. In fact, he is said to have visited Los Angeles, USA, to meet the officials of the streaming channel. This is definitely an important development.”
ON THE CARDS
Aamir also has his ambitious project Mahabharat on the cards. “This project may happen before Mahabharat,” feels the source. Biopics are the order of the day in Bollywood, and looks like this one will be an interesting addition to the list.
ALIA BHATT GIVES A THUMBS-UP, TOO
Alia Bhatt, who has worked with Shakun in Kapoor & Sons and is a close friend of the director, has apparently heard the script. The source adds, “She, too, has loved it. It’s not known whether she will be a part of the project, but she believes it’s a great script.”
B-TOWN’S TALKING ABOUT OSHO
The Netflix documentary series Wild Wild Country, which is based on Osho and the international community, Rajneeshpuram, in Oregon, USA, was released on March 16. The show is a huge hit with viewers and has caught the fancy of B-Towners, too. Actors like Emraan Hashmi and Riteish Deshmukh have even been tweeting about it. With the sudden focus on the spiritual guru’s life, one wonders if this might lead to more projects on the same topic cropping up.
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