Under the Maagic spell

Filmmaker Subhash Ghai and his wife have been visiting Radhe Maa since last year. “We are both devotees of Mata Vaishno Devi and we went to seek her blessings at the mata ki chowki in Borivali Bhavan, that is organised by her old devotees. We too held a mata ki chowki at our residence and invited her to bless us and our friends,” he says, adding, “She has been very affectionate to both of us and treats us like her parents. We have never witnessed any kind of indecent act which people are talking about today. On meeting her, we came to know that she is a normal, sensitive, married woman with two sons who are well settled. She has grandchildren too and she leads a very normal social life just like any other independent woman. She loves to go shopping when she is abroad and she is not in her devi maa attire then.”

The filmmaker feels that the dances she performs in her ‘Devi roop’ are being misconstrued. “She dances to the bhajans she loves and she wants her devotees to treat her like a child. Her elderly devotees call her ‘Gudia Devi Ma’. I hope she clarifies herself on this controversy soon,” Subhash said.

Rakhi Sawant credits Radhe Maa for her transition from an ‘item girl’ to an ‘actress.’ “Nobody had believed I could do this, but only Maa did,” Rakhi said. Her faith was further consolidated when a debtor returned her money and this, Rakhi says, is one among many of Maa’s ‘miracles.’ “Maa is innocent, just like a child. So what if she wears short clothes or dances to Bollywood songs? She is human after all, but she performs miracles. People should not fear women, that too a mother like her. I can understand if these allegations were levied on a man. So many people turn up drunk at Ganpati visarjans and they dance. Should they be arrested too? They get drunk, dance and then even rape women. If Maa dances, she does it for her bhakts. I also feel the images of her in a short dress, were Photoshopped.”

Some of Radhe Maa’s erstwhile bhakts have turned the cold shoulder though. And one of them is Dolly Bindra, who had once splattered her social networking profile with photos of herself with Radhe Maa at social gatherings. Rakhi doesn’t mince words, when asked to comment on that. “Yes, there are people like Dolly Bindra who have stopped following her because unko meva nahi mila, seva toh karni nahi hai unko. They want to be Radhe Maa themselves.”

When asked, Dolly says, “I used to go to her satsangs years ago but I have stopped attending them now. And I would not like to reveal my reasons at this stage.”

Mukesh Khanna too says, “I don’t know why my name is being dragged into this. I have never met her personally. I am against this blind faith.”

The biggest surprise has been sprung by adman Prahlad Kakkar though, who has come out in strong support of Radhe Maa. He says, “I believe in her implicitly and I think people are simply witch hunting. She never said that she is God. She is a religious guide who wears clothes given to her by people. I don’t think she will come and defend herself and neither does she need to. No one sees the books she donates, the kind of langars she holds, and the amount of charity she does. She doesn’t even have a house of her own and lives in her bhakt’s houses most of the times. She said I’ll be going through health problems and it was true,” he says.