The power of infamy

Book review of Nothing to Lose

The name Nothing to Lose lures the reader into thinking that this is a no-holds barred account of the life and times of Ma Anand Sheela, the controversial globe-trotting sanyasin. Far from it. A more honest title for the book may well have been the plea that Ma Anand Sheela (born Sheela Ambalal Patel) entered in an American court at the time of her trial: “I am guilty but I didn’t do it". 

The plea helped leverage a loophole couched in American legalese called the Alford Guilty Plea, which lets an accused claim innocence and yet be guilty of the crimes. Sheela’s non-non-admission helped her lawyers cut a deal with the US government and paved the way for a relatively lighter punishment (39 months of imprisonment) for the long list of heinous crimes of which she was accused. 

Much like the statement, the book challenges the reader’s patience and credulity. With a narrative laden with cliché and hyperbole, it ends up saying nothing at all, nothing about her odd choices or about the way in which she raised money for the ashram or for her present project—the old age home she runs in Switzerland.

Ms Patel is one of the most controversial religious commune/cult leaders of our time. Her name is synonymous with that of her guru Bhagwan, Rajneesh, whose drug-filled, free-sex life in his ashrams took the world by storm in the 1980s. The cult (a term that Ms Patel has said she hates) and its wide appeal among the world’s rich and famous, was the subject of a recent documentary on Netflix (Wild Wild Country), in which her icy-cold stare into the camera when confronted with alleged crimes suggest a woman of little remorse.  

Ms Patel came across as a woman who knew how to give it back and tell it like it is. She was never apologetic for the extravagant lifestyle she and her guru led, zipping through continents, buying aircraft and expensive cars and raising money in a manner that can at best be described as ingenious. The biography was an opportunity to get into the mind of this woman and understand how she convinced the rich and famous to part with their millions, for a red-robed guru and his saffron-clad sanyasins. 

This is an opportunity that author Manbeena Sandhu lets slip. Her fascination with Ms Patel’s life clouds her perspective and her non-existent writing skills turn the book into a breathless narrative about a woman wronged by circumstance and society. 

The crimes, the controversies around orgies and drug overdose and the trial are dismissed in a few paragraphs, with the maximum attention reserved for Ms Patel’s feelings of love and bliss at the feet of Bhagwan, her deep sadness about the way she was treated by some of her fellow sanyasins and her eventual disenchantment with her mentor.

Nothing to Lose
Author: Manbeena Sandhu
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 321
Price: Rs 599

The real story escapes through the loose and leaky structure of the book, and the pedestrian plodding prose makes it unreadable. Every page you turn has doors closing creakily or Sheela’s shaky hands wiping her face or her brows furrowed with worry. Voices always drip with indignation or anxiety. One wonders if there was an editor that worked on the manuscript at all.

Ms Patel was Rajneesh’s secretary and his voice when he chose to live his life in silence. She was instrumental in moving him out of India when Rajneesh and his followers were being hounded out of their haven in Pune. Her resourcefulness so impressed the Bhagwan that he dumped his old secretary and anointed Ms Patel almost overnight. Ms Patel helped him relocate to Wasco County, Oregon, and build Rajneeshpuram in the middle of nowhere.

She cracked the toughest deals for Rajneesh, and Ms Sandhu does not mince words when it comes to Rajneesh’s love for glitz and bling. But she is silent about Ms Patel’s obsession with fast cars and all things expensive, hinting that these were gifts that the guru offered his devotee as an appreciation of her love and dedication.

In its attempt to give a fair (read favourable) hearing to Ms Patel, the book flirts outrageously with reality. And Ms Patel gets a complete makeover; from a woman who was accused of poisoning her own flock and rigging county elections, she is transformed into a loving daughter, grieving lover (for all her husbands and partners) and one whose vulnerable and gullible nature made her do unspeakable things. 

How did the shrewd Ms Patel allow herself to be swayed and led by a squeaky-voiced guru? Any insight into what triggers such devotion would have made for an interesting study into the power of religious leaders and the vulnerability of their disciples. But the book does not even go there. 

What could have been a racy thriller is a bland cliché-ridden hagiography, written under the careful tutelage of a team of lawyers and the hawk eye of a spotlight-chasing subject. After a life such as hers, Ms Patel needed a better biographer, one who could have stood up to her and the men in suits.