Thursday, 10 November 2022

My Daughter Joined a Cult

My Daughter Joined a Cult

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, writing this blog to present my reading upon the documentary: "My Daughter Joined a Cult" by Discovery+ so first of all we will see the superstition environment in india. Then I write my reading upon the documentary.

India is a large south Asian country with billions of people belonging to different castes and creeds with different social and cultural background and socioeconomic class. Here, people have different views, beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge about different situations.

Superstition in India is considered a widespread social problem. Superstition refers to any belief or practice which is explained by supernatural causality, and is in contradiction to modern science.Some beliefs and practices, which are considered superstitious by some, may not be considered so by others. The gap, between what is superstitious and what is not, widens even more when considering the opinions of the general public and scientists.

Superstitions are usually attributed to a lack of education. But, in India educated people have also been observed following beliefs that may be considered superstitious. The literacy rate of India, according to the 2011 census is at 74%.The beliefs and practices vary from region to region, with many regions having their own specific beliefs.The practices may range from harmless lemon-and-chilli totems for warding off evil eye to serious concerns like witch-burning. Some of these beliefs and practices are centuries old and are considered part of the tradition and religion, as a result introduction of new prohibitory laws often face opposition.

Psychologists and anthropologists suggest that Individuals who follow superstitious practices do so to cope with misfortune and uncertainty and to make sense of a complex world.Other research has suggested that superstitious beliefs can endure if the probability of them being exposed as untrue is low. If there is always some chance of a bad outcome when following superstition and some chance of a good outcome when not, an individual might never realize that it is untrue and continue to follow it. Even though the world has faced many changes and development in the field of science and technology, the belief of the people over superstitions still exists in society.

About documentary:

In 2019, Netflix released a documentary feature, Bikram: Yogi, Guru & Predator, detailing the many sexual misconduct allegations against popular yoga guru Bikram Choudhury. A year later came Bad Boy Billionaires, which singled out the shady dealings of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Subrata Roy. A damning portrait emerges of another absconder, Nithyananda, in the three-part documentary series My Daughter Joined a Cult, which streams on discovery+. Using news footage, a lot of it from local media in Karnataka, talking heads of ex-devotees and journalists, and video bytes of the godman’s sermons, the show tracks the quick rise and subsequent fall of Swami Nithyananda.

“The moment you sit in front of me, enlightenment starts,” says Nithyananda to his audience. It is one of the many declarations the godman makes, which leave us questioning what made people fall for him. His legion of followers includes influential and wealthy people, who are unnamed, and like many Indian spiritual gurus he has his share of foreign devotees. There are accounts from followers-turned- whistleblowers. The most insightful voice here belongs to an anonymous woman whose experience suggests that Nithyananda knew how to target the vulnerable and make people commit to him so much that they’d be ready to sever ties with their families.

Nithyananda’s two-faced ways are revealed best by Sarah Landry aka Sudevi, his social media manager, and Jordan Lozada through their recollection of goings-on in the ashram, which include verbal abuse and beating of disciples as well as demands to ramp up the videos propagating his teachings and increase the enrolments for his inner awakening programme. Landry and Lozada do as the boss orders with a video segment called “Keeping up with the Kailashians”, in which they dress up in saffron robes and chronicle their lives in the ashram.

The series often runs like a well-edited Wikipedia entry as it documents the key events in Nithyananda’s controversial life—the foremost being the “sex tape” which rubbishes his claims of being a celibate; accusation of rape from erstwhile follower Aarthi Rao, and the sudden death of a young woman at his ashram in Bidadi near Bengaluru. These hardly deter his followers, who instead launch a malicious campaign against his detractors. What the series is low on are nuggets on his origins, the lapse which led to his escape from India, apparently without a passport, and Kailaasa, a country he reportedly founded and is currently based in. A quick search on Google tells you that it can be accessed only through chartered flights.

Nithyananda is not the only one missing. The series begins with footage of Janardhan Sharma and his wife searching for their two daughters, who they believe are held against their will by the swami at his ashram in Ahmedabad. "I am very happy here. I am not kidnapped,” says Nanditha in a video call with the media, rejecting her parents’ claims. Sharma’s two daughters are yet to be found. While most of his former followers are busy critiquing him, Jansi Rani is one of the few to call out her own follies. Rani’s 24-year-old daughter died of a heart attack in the ashram under mysterious circumstances. “He told us the sun rose because he appeared,” she says. “All of us were crazy.” Many continue to be under his sway watching his videos and supporting him as he hides in Kailaasa, a place few can pinpoint on a map and where the self-proclaimed ‘Paramashivam’ continues to preach.

Another points to notice from documentary:

The title speaks to the predatory behaviour of self-styled godmen towards young individuals, and the stories in the docu-series map how this grooming takes place. A viewer who is not clued into how religious cults work may wonder what compelled parents to hand over their children to a religious organisation, giving up control and access entirely. The godman in My Daughter Joined a Cult earned the trust of parents — who saw him as the pole star of their lives — and presented himself as a father figure without any need for romantic or sexual attachments.

The second and third episodes in the docu-series are a study in absurdity. Rather conveniently, Nithyananda dismisses the notion of ‘karma’ as being legitimate: “Karma means that the effect of our actions will come back to us in the future, is a myth. There is no CCTV recording going on in the cosmos… where your actions will be bringing suffering to you in the future. God is not playing the game of judge.” In the series, we also learn that a summons from the court does not reach the godman, because his security team quite literally does not allow it to pass. When a TV journalist attempts to be a medium for the summons by carrying it with him at a press conference held at the ashram, he is chased out before he can even finish reading it.

The unwavering support and devotion that Nithyananda enjoyed would not exist if it weren’t for a carefully constructed self-mythology. The godman at the centre of My Daughter Joined a Cult not only commodified faith but also himself. One of the many manifestations of this is his devotees taking selfies with standees of his image. Saraiya remembers another story concerning a devotee who claimed they were healed of an acute health issue because of the godman’s mere touch. The docu-series paints a picture of how Nithyananda changed his appearance over the years; as his hair grew out, he also increasingly presented himself as a pathway to enlightenment, and Shiva himself. “A coupon code for God,” as Saraiya aptly puts it.

Thank you!

Youth festival 2022- MKBU

Youth festival 2022- MKBU



Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University organized a four day long (18,19,20,21 September 2022) Youth festival under the campaign ‘Aadi ka Amrut Mahotsav’. This whole event is hosted by Takshshila Institute of Science and Commerce. The theme of 2022 youth Fest is ‘યુવા ઊર્જા મહોત્સવ’ . Due to the corona pandemic this grand intercollege youth festival wasn’t possible. This year again with the same enthusiasm university, host, institutes and students are being part of this event. Every year youth fest is declared around 2 month earlier and all the institutes used to prepare for 2 months but this time due to Gujarat State level youth, MKBU Youth festival was declared just 15-20 days prior and was performed by the students.

Kalayatra :


Various Tableaux of Kalayatra

College

Theme

Photos

Swami Sahajanand College of Commerce and Management

NEP 2020

“शिक्षा की गारंटी, रफ्तार भारत की...”


This Tableaux emphasized on National Education Policy 2020. 



Importance of Knowledge, skill and abilities. It presented various aspects of NEP- 2020.

Sardar Patel Institute

1723 to 2022, journey of 299 years of Bhavnagar



Bhavnagar is a heritage city and is well- known for its King Maharaja krishnakumarasinhji who was the first one to give his country to Sardarvallabh Patel for making Indian one. The tableaux also em[phasised over it ‘Vilaypatra’ and it directly focused on the development of Bhavnagar. It has references to places like Alang and CSMCRI along with the topic of women empowerment.



Takshshila Institute

It represented all the prominent figures of India who in various fields have made India proud.

Department of English

Literature and Digital world

Department of Life Science

Prominent Figures who worked for the society, Social Servicers.

M.J College


K.R.Doshi group of colleges

Representation of Rural or Working class through dance

Samaldas Arts College

Our blindness towards road accidents.

Sir P.P. Institute of Science

Women Empowerment. It had a wonderful representation of  Kannagi, a legendary Tamil woman character from Tamil epic Silapathikaram written by Jain prince Ilango Adigal. Kannagi proves and protests the injustice then curses the king and the city of Madurai.


Shree Swaminarayan Cluster of Colleges

Gujarat Culture


Udghatan Samaroh:

DAY-1 [19-09-2022]

List of the competitions on day-1, topics in events, in brief about a few events, and some photos.

Mimicry- There were only four participants in Mimicry and majorly they all did mimicry of animals, birds, vehicles, etc. voices. It was organized in Atal Auditorium (Vinodbhai Amlani Natyamanch).



Bhajan- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)



Tatkal Chitra (on-the-spot painting Drawing)- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • Festival of Navratri
  • Azadika Amrit Mahotsav
  • Village marriage



Prashn Manch round 1 (Quiz)- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)

I was not a participant in a Quiz but I was present there as a volunteer as it was organized in our Department. I saw many of the participants have no idea about the format of the quiz. The quiz event is done in two rounds. Every team has a maximum of 3 participants, the first round is written in which all three combinedly give a test. From this round, the highest-scoring 5 teams are selected for the second round. The second round is in a proper quiz format with a quiz master, arranged on the next day.

Swarachit Kavya Pathan (Poetry writing and recitation)- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)
  • વિરહી હૈયાંની વાત (Song of a Bereaved Heart)
  • સ્મરણ (Memory)highest-scoring
  • આ માટીને કાજે (For this land)
  • અચાનક એવું થાય તો…! (And suddenly if it happens so)
  • કાલ તમારું સપનું આવ્યું (I dreamt about you)
Swarachit kavya Pathan amuses me a lot, it seems amazing how participants write wonderful poems on their own in a given limited time. I got a chance to listen to a few poetry recitations. Being completely unknown of the way of writing poems, I liked all the poems. It was a great effort by all of them. Most of the poems were written in free verse and few tried their hands on couplet and quatrains. Mostly everyone used metaphors from nature and mythologies. I expected that at least one of them might have used modern metaphors but it wasn't found. The topic majorly chosen by participants was Memory and I dreamt about you and mostly the poems were love poems. There were one or two patriotic poems.


Lok Nritya (Folk Dance)- organized in the Amphi Theater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)





Mime- organized in Atal Auditorium (Vinodbhai Amlani Natyamanch)
Mime is a theatrical technique of suggesting action, character, or emotion without words, using only gesture, expression, and movement. There were a total of nine teams participating in it. The themes in the mime were:
  • Importance of outdoor games over mobile games. It aptly showed modern reality. It also showed how mobile games affect youngsters and remarked on the recent Indian Olympic winners also.
  • The life of a soldier, his fight, sacrifice, living away from family, and working for the nation Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav was a focused theme.
  • One other mime was also a patriotic theme. It had the idea of a surgical strike and also showed the agni dah to soldiers. It uses the reverse technique in there, which was unique in them among all the participants.
  • There were two mimes on a similar theme of humans harming animals for their own fun and entertainment in the jungle and today humans are harming themselves in this culture of technology.
  • The new and unique theme I found was transgender. Acceptance of transgender, a boy who identifies his real identity as a girl in his teenage his and the reaction of society towards him.
  • Story of Gautam Buddha.
  • There was contemporariness in one mime, it talked about the life of farmers and their fight for their rights. It represented the recent (Kisan Adolan 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest) and at least one farmer having suicide.
  • Circus and the threat to the life of humans in the circus. It showed the reality of circus doers and their difficulties.



Halvu Kanthya Sangit (Sugam Geet)- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)


Collage - organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • Amrut Mahotsav ni live stage event
  • Freedom fighters (લડવૈયા)
  • Mother




DAY-2 [20/09/2022]

List of the competitions on day-2, topics in events, in brief about a few events and some photos.

Samuh Geet (Western)- organized in the Amphi Theater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)




Ekanki (one- act play)- organized in Atal Auditorium (Vinodbhai Amlani Natyamanch)
I had my competitions so unfortunately I couldn't get a chance to watch one act plays. But you can read about it in Himanshi parmamr’s BlogTrushali Dodiya’s Blog and Dhruvita Dhameliya’s Blog.

The One- act plays performed were
1) Ashifa ek paheli
2) Hu pasalo chu
3) Adhuru Chitr
4) Aai khani chopa
5) Artificial intelligence

One act plays were also live streamed on the YouTube but due to some reasons it was removed and so the participants of other events couldn't get an opportunity to watch it.


Shastriya Gayan- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)

Poster making- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • Wild Life
  • Road Safety
  • Yoga


Parshan Manch Final- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)

Western Song (solo)
- organized in the Amphi Theater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)
Lok Geet- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)


Clay Modeling- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • Teacher and Student (ગુરુ અને શિષ્ય)
  • Yogasan (યોગા)
  • Traveler (મુસાફીર)


Mono Acting- organized in Atal Auditorium (Vinodbhai Amlani Natyamanch)

Shastriya Vadan (Tal Vadhya)- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)

Mehndi- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)

1st rank 

 3rd rank




Nibandh (Essay writing)- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)
  • Mobile Phone - useful or useless?
  • Health is wealth
  • If humans can know the future
  • Fatal factors of democracy
  • Two steps towards a nature
Shastriya Nritya- organized in the Atal hall (Vinod Almani Natyamanch)



Tatkal Photography (Spot Photography)- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • લોકોની વચ્ચે
  • યુવા મહોત્સવ
  • કુદરત અને હું

Short Film- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)
  • ભારત/ગુજરાતનો ભવ્ય વારસો/સંસ્કૃતિ
  • સ્વતંત્ર સગ્રામ
  • સામાજિક જાગૃતિ
Short film event was organized for the very first time in our university. There were a total of 7 entries.

Magic Box
It was a great film. Here magic box is used symbolically and it refers to Makeup box. The theme of the film was domestic violence and how it gets transferred from mother to daughter. Makeup as a magic helped the female protagonist to hide their wounds of domestic violence. And this also affected the young girl child in the family who was playing with dolls. The short film showed the three generations all together. It had a good use of light and dark shades of light. The wonderfully focused makeup box which held a great importance in it, it also had a wonderful use of silence and pauses. In less dialogue and less time they delivered a strong effective message. It has also used an amusing memory/ past sequence. It is a must watch short film for beginners who are trying to make a short film.



Zamku
Zamku , the whole short film is in a dream sequence. It talked about male dominated society. It had simple cinematography and light comedy. This can also be used as a strong and good example for beginners. It's a satire on male dominated environments through light comedy.


Three
This short film tried to bring awareness about Dissociative Identity Disorder. It had good acting and strongly brought this idea.



Bhavnagar
This short film had no dialogues but had good cinematography, good shots and drone photography. It represented bhavnagar as a heritage city and presented all the famous places of it.

Swatantrata no Sangram
It was like a documentary short video, presenting only a write up of the great fighters, who fought for the independence.

Maharajshree
This film talked about the Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji who was the first one to give his country to sardar Patel to unite India. This short film talks about it . It has a good beginning as a friend walking among. They had a wonderful idea of using only the torso part as a symbol of the person. But the mistake they made was the use of background. It talked about the royal family but the clothing of the queen and the background they used was not at all royal.




Fake it Till you Make it
Fake it till you make it is about Fake news and its harmfulness. How Politicians overpower the media and don't let the truth come out. This film has also made good use of camera and cinematography. It tried to bring out the reality of today.


Lok Vadya Vrinda- organized in the AmphiTheater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)

Skit- organized in Atal Auditorium (Vinodbhai Amlani Natyamanch)
Skit is a short comedy sketch or piece of humorous writing, especially a parody. I got a chance to watch a few skits and am writing briefly about it.

Skit-1
In this skit the Ravana came on the earth in the 21st century and was shocked to see all the happenings on the Earth like the Ukraine Russia war, sold media, elections, male domination, women's situation. The skit ended with a question of where is Ram Rajya? And even after so many wrong happenings why is he burnt on every Dussehra. The element of comedy was aptly presented when Ravana was facing difficulties in the 21st century.



Skit-2
It referred to all the contemporary happening like blindness towards vaccine, thali bajao and diya jalao, all the recent cases of murder and rape of girls: Rabiya case, grishma case of Surat.



Skit-3
This was a wonderful skit it played with most of the genres like farce, wit, parody, black humor. It was a social and political satire. It satires the use of the word sanskriti, education and the recent trend of boycotting movies. They used the character of Gangubai as a politician and Pushpa as a middle class person. They satirize religion in education; Schools and machine makers; students as machines. Schools and education where everything's there except God Saraswati. And if anyone tries to ask questions they are asked to enjoy what's happening like keep on playing garba, enjoy carnivals, don't question.


Skit-4
This skit was named ‘WHY?’ in it they question society about losing humanity. But in this skit I felt the major target was women. They question surrogacy and question women that for maintaining their they don't want to be pregnant. They question women living their life, wearing jeans, going to the parlor and living their child with a nanny at home. They gave shradhanjali to humanity. But in all this matter there was complete absence of father and his role.


Other skit had a court scene where a student filed a case against a teacher for overloading the studies and requesting a child to be a child and one was a ‘Love e-story’ a village love story. Both were comedies but we couldn't find any parody or satire in it.


Shastriya Vadan (Swar Vadhya)- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)

Cartooning- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • Politician (નેતા)
  • Inflationary (મોંઘવારી)
  • Corruption (ભ્રષ્ટાચાર)



Duha-Chhand- organized in the Amphi Theater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)


DAY-3 [21/09/2022]

List of the competitions on day-3, topics in events, in brief about a few events and some photos.

Samuh Geet (Bhartiya)- organized in the Amphi Theater (Shree Mahendrabhai Meghani Mukhyamanch)

Vaktrutva (Elocution)- Organized in Old court hall (Shree Rajesh Vaishnav Surmanch)
  • Gandhian Thought and the 21st Century (ગાંધીવિચાર અને 21 મી સદી)
  • Our role in Aazadi ka Amrut Mahotsav (આઝાદીના અમૃત અવસરે આપણી ભૂમિકા)
  • Value Based Education - How far is necessary? (નૈતિક મૂલ્યો આધારિત શિક્ષણ - કેટલું જરૂરી?)
  • Nation Building and Youth (રાષ્ટ્રનિર્માણ અને યુવાનો)
  • Woman - A Self-creating Force / A Dynamic Force (નારી - એક સ્વયં સર્જન શક્તિ)


Rangoli- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)



Installation- organized in the External Department (Shree T. K. Gohil Kalamanch)
  • સંસ્કૃતિ
  • આઝાદી
  • સ્વચ્છતા

Debate- organized in the Department of English (Shree Harindra Dave Sahitya Manch)
  • Is India marching ahead to lead the world? (ભારત વિશ્વગુરુ બનવા તરફ?)
  • Are women free in our society? (આપણા સમાજમાં સ્ત્રીઓ સ્વતંત્ર છે ખરી?)

CLOSING CEREMONY

The Closing Ceremony of the Youth Festival brought a wave of happiness, full of energy and fun. Closing ceremony is always a period of tension. Everyone keeps waiting for the declaration of the result, the result of their hard work.



The dignitaries at the youth festival were Dr. Chetan Trivedi- Vice Chancellor of Bhaktkavi Narsinh Mehta University, IG Ashok Yadav sir, trustees of Takshshila Institute, RJ Akash and Singer Ishani Dave.

Here are the videos of the closing ceremony.