MOTHER EARTH.........CALLING

Arvind Monappa rushed to the Cubbon Park Police station in Bangalore. The voice at the other end of phone sounded tired, but Inspector T. Ashok had something new for him.

“Come to the station, I have something interesting for you , something you will love to investigate”.

Cryptic, but enough to pique his attention. Arvind was having dinner with his friends, when he excused himself and rushed off to the police station. This was too good to miss.

He arrived at the station at 9.30pm on a Monday evening, and went straight into to meet the Inspector.

The inspector was speaking to an old couple, he saw Arvind and gestured to him to take a seat near the window. Arvind had a good vantage point of the room, and could overhear the conversation. The parents had come to lodge a complaint. The complaint was being lodged against Swami Shivananda Parmahasana, and his followers. The parents alleged that their daughter Devika, had been enticed and kidnapped by the Swami. The Inspector made some polite sounds, and sympathetic clucking sounds and after giving them a cup of tea, led them to the door. After telling them that he would get to the bottom of it, he asked his Havaldar to see them to the door.
He returned back to his desk, and gestured for Arvind to join him. Inspector Ashok was a man of few words, so Arvind knew that when he spoke, he better listen carefully.

The Inspector had a simple task. He wanted Arvind to investigate the Swami, this had been the fourth complaint against the man. It was the same story. All the women were single, either divorced or widowed, and from wealthy families. They were first lured into the group by one of his followers, by a promise of becoming spiritually evolved. They were all made to understand that this was journey to something bigger and better. Slowly they were weaned away from family and friends, and in some cases had given away all their wealth, money, jewelry and property to the Swami or his bhakt’s , with a promise of eternal salvation.

Arvind was very excited, this was the first time in two years, since he had become the crime reporter, that he was happy to write about something that according to the Inspector, was the fastest growing undetected crime in Bangalore. He took the address of Devika’s parents and three other people from the Inspector. The next day he went to meet them.

Devika’s parents were from Coorg. The father , Mr. Medappa had been working in Consolidated Coffee, and had his own estate in Virajpet. Devika was the elder of two kids, the younger son was living abroad. The father had suffered a massive heart attack about five years back. Mrs. Medappa, was a housewife, who was a kindly old lady. She was confused about what was happening. Arvind, showed his newspaper’s card to introduce himself. He told them that he was investigating the Swami, and wanted to bring it into the open, so that this extortion would stop. It was like a flood gate had opened. Mr. Medappa, broke down and cried. Arvind put the pieces together. Her parents knew something was wrong, when Devika came over one day and asked for her share in the family money. She wanted nearly twenty lakh rupees immediately, as it was extremely important for her Swamiji to perform a puja, with his main disciple Shyamlee Kurrupuswamy Singh. Shyamlee was Devika’s main contact with the Swamiji. She gave Devika messages from the Swamiji in exchange for money. First the amounts that had been given were small, then they began to grow. Mrs. Medappa soon found her jewelry missing, silver candlesticks gone. She did not want to alarm her husband, so she kept quiet about it. Only when one day Devika came and demanded her share of the property , did the parents think something was very wrong.
It was the same story with the other three people. Each had some family member who had been involved with the Swamiji, and in all three cases Shymalee was the messenger. Arvind, went in the morning and gave this information to the producer of the television network he worked for. The producer was thrilled, it was an opportune moment to conduct a sting operation on the Swamiji and his disciples. There were four reporters assigned to this case, each was assigned a task. Arvind was given the task of following Shymalee. Two others were given the task of following the Swamiji, one by infiltrating the ashram as a devotee, and the other posing as an NRI from the middle east, in search of spiritual gratification. One reporter, was sent as a reporter herself to interview the Swamiji for her daily newspaper, and to get quotes for the ladies section of the newspaper.
It took them four months, but they had enough information to put away the Swamiji and Shymalee for years. When they broad cast this on their network, all the other channels got onto the bandwagon and the Ashram was bombarded by the press. The police became part of the sting operation and conducted a raid on the Ashram. They found nearly twenty women there. Women who had left their homes to come and live in the Ashram, among them was Devika.

It has been a year since this incident. Devika now lives in Coorg with her parents. Under their watchful eye, she is making a slow but positive recovery. The Swami is on the run, and has gone into hiding. Shyamlee, protested her innocence in the whole deal and is still seen around Bangalore, probably doing the same thing to someone else.

Her opening line to most of the women was “ I am Mother Earth and I am here to give you what you truly deserve”.