Searching for Sheela (2021)

Rajneesh Unravelling

It has been the best part of 35 years since The City of Rajneeshpuram began to unravel.  Oregon had initially extended a welcome mat to these “harmless” new-age hippies but gradually, attitudes changed.  Locals slowly decided that The Rajneeshis brought “strange and foreign ways” incompatible with their upright Christian Morals.  By the mid-1980s, Rajneeshpuram started to implode.  Bhagwan had grown silent and stopped speaking to his disciples, isolating himself in an increasingly drug-fuelled state of delusion.  Trusted Ally Ma Anand Sheela steps into the role of messenger to followers through words he supposedly asked her to convey.  The glorious collection of Rolexes and Rolls Royce’s surged past the three-figure mark as Bhagwan remained in his little cocoon, and the reigns of his empire were now in Sheela’s hand.  Tough Titties!

The Love Guru

As the locals grew increasingly suspicious, wily politicians took the chance to tap into xenophobia.  The spectre of a “foreign invasion” with incompatible “Un-American” ways started to enter the discussion.  Soon a concerted effort to displace the “The Love Guru” and his drugs & sex-crazed disciples had gathered momentum.  Sheela interpreted the antipathy towards the Community as a thinly veiled racist attack, and she wasn’t entirely wrong.  The way officialdom hustled to brand The Rajneesh community as another People’s Temple smacked of a witch hunt.

Whitey!

An enraged Sheela went on the offensive with a series of TV appearances and lashed out.  Her method and manner didn’t do the Rajneesh cause any favours.  A diplomatic face would have been a far better front than a bristling Sheela.  Oddly she seems to be thoroughly enjoying the spotlight and villain role.  Bhagwan Rajneesh had a gentle tone and was adept at keeping the media at bay.  He projected the loopy but benign Love Guru rather than a Jim Jones or David Koresh.  Sheela employed a different approach.  One that involved “sticking it to the White Man”.  The Charlie Manson school of thought?

Wild, Wild Country, a Netflix series from a couple of years ago, sparked renewed interest in the Osho phenomenon.  The “cult” was another example of a wily Indian using a Guru status to win over legions of lost souls.  Bikram, the Yoga master, also turned the colonial tables on the ex-masters gratuitously, even shockingly.   Ma Anand Sheela has subsequently garnered quite a following at home for how she “Stuck it to Whitey” without the slightest knowledge of her manipulative, dishonest, devious and dictatorial manner. 

Many of her contemporaries have spoken about Ma Anand Sheela, and few have anything positive about her.  Even the film’s director has talked about how his parents were followers of Rajneesh but did not care for Sheela.  This documentary strives to show a warmer, softer Sheela, and in doing so, it loses its objectivity.  Unfortunately, this documentary does not take their perspective on board and avoids the issue altogether.  There is nothing like two sides to a story in this documentary.  It serves very much as an opportunity for both Sheela and Karan Johar.

Mutual Benefits

So, here we have Karan Johan, always on the lookout to exploit a hot topic.  Netflix had recently scored a hit with their Rajneesh series Wild, Wild Country and the canny K-Jo sniffed his opportunity.  Johar strikes a plan and makes Sheela an offer too good to resist.  She gets to “set the record straight” while he can exploit her “revival” with an exclusive Interview Tour.  It’s like a Beyoncé tour, where tickets are only accessible to the filthy rich.  Sheela relishes a stylish new makeover and a personal make-up man mixed with the rich and famous.  At the same time, he gets to make a “documentary” and redemption and the powerful, wronged Indian woman who dared to stand up for herself.  They strike a mutually beneficial deal. 

Bombay’s Botox Beauties

Bombay’s Botox beauties and socialites surround Ma Anand Sheela, and she finds herself the toast of the city.  Younger women fawn over her like star-struck groupies at uptown venues and trendy parties.  It may not be Beatlemania, but Sheela, posing for selfie upon selfie, is quite the hit among the elite socialites.  Johar takes his show on the road as a series of Interviews and question-and-answer sessions.  In the closing scenes, Johar’s “documentary” makes time for footage of Sheela at her “nursing home”, where she cares for the elderly and frail while some gentle music tugs at the heartstrings.

The rich and famous are all over Ma Anand Sheela and her cute, perky hairstyle.  Voluptuous young PYTs lined up to take selfies with the “Badass” Indian Hero who dared to fight back.  Her shady and highly dubious machinations seem magically erased as she heads home to her childhood home and wipes away a tear, all beautifully captured (and probably scripted) by Dharmatic.

Sheela never once came across as a person of compassion and warmth over the years; plenty of people will attest to that who spent years in her presence.  Now Dharmatic offers her rehabilitation and acceptance, very noble indeed, but the bottom line is the deal with Netflix and a Documentary that comes across as natural as an episode of The Bollywood Wives. 

The film isn’t a documentary at all.  It is a poorly scripted PR advert that attempts to portray Sheela as a “Badass” pop star on a tour for the rich and famous.  The intentions are as shallow as they sound, and so is the execution. 

If there is one word that describes the whole shambolic attempt at a documentary, it would be “offensive”, just like Sheela’s book was.  Full of allegations and “revelations” about a man who despised her by the end of their “friendship” and can’t defend himself from beyond.

Searching For Sheela comes across more as a self-indulgent promo that smacks of made-for-Netflix of the worst kind than a worthy documentary.  The film is even more painful because its subject is a woman who is a fun caricature as a kick-ass hippy mama who made outrageous and highly confrontational statements (some deserved) to American Prime Time TV as in her catchphrase Tough Titties.  She relished the limelight and played up to her role as the villain to the hilt.  She ate it up.  She was good for ratings, sometimes.  She was also surprisingly easy to dislike. 

Ma Anand Sheela, AKA Sheela Ambalal Patel, is a character to remember, but so is Eileen Wournous.  But who knows, underneath all that crafty, bristling, controlling woman could lie the angel she claims to be?