MUMBAI: Anupria Goenka- the Padmaavat, Tiger Zinda Hai and War fame, who has also done Sacred Games and MX Player's Aashram, narrates a shocking episode in her life wherein thankfully she sensed that something was wrong and took stock of the situation in time.
In a recent video interview, Ms. Goenka said that she has had good and bad experiences with godmen. Currently, in her life, there's someone who's not a godman or a spiritual leader but an astrologer whom she seeks counselling from. "Whenever I am flustered or clueless, he is my go-to person. He gives me a sense of peace. It's almost like hearing the voice of God, it's a treasure to have someone like that.", shares the actress.
But Anupria is clear that she is not going to give the reins of her life to someone.
"Having said that I need to be laying my faith in my hard work and my capabilities. In case if certain things don't work out for me they are either because of my shortcomings or not meant for me. A human cannot turn your life upside down and do miracles for you. I can trust someone but cannot empower that person to control me and lose my instincts.", she expresses.
This is apparently coming from two things - her father's tryst with spirituality and a bad experience she had when she was 18-years-old.
Anupria continues, "My father was extremely spiritually inclined. My definition of spirituality is believing in the universe, believing in the existence of some external force that is above us, believing in good thoughts and doing things to help others. I like to believe there's God as it makes me feel better. But for my dad, spirituality was always finding babas and godmen, going completely berserk and dedicating one's self to a certain 'aastha'. He lost focus and it harmed the family as it incapacitated him to work and put all of us in a difficult spot.".
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Anupria narrates her bitter experience with a spiritual leader and says, "My family trusted him very heavily. Even I had started to believe in him. He sounded reasonable and said just the right things, he sounded very practical. But he tried to take advantage of me. I was 18 then. That scarred me for a very, very long time. Thankfully, I did not let him take advantage. I was able to escape the situation. I knew I had to hear my instincts, though I had to fight them for a while. I had started to see signs and gauged from prior meetings that something was amiss. I kept doubting myself because I had believed in him for so long and didn't think it was possible.".
On being asked whether her father still runs after babas and godmen, she replies, "Ya, he still functions like that. But he is now an aged person and we don't allow him to take extreme steps. But if given a chance...".
She trails off, then further adds, "It starts affecting his health because he gets so heavily invested in it.".
Credit: ETimes
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