ABSTRACT
In Spring 2008 in the Sonepat district of Haryana, an attractive 42-year-old, female spiritual teacher and TV personality known as Anandmurti Gurumaa (also known simply as Gurumaa) sat regally upon an elaborate stage created for the dual celebratory events of her birthday (8 April) and her sannyas diwas (11 April), the anniversary day of her renunciation, signified here by a name most commonly associated with ‘Hindu’ ascetism. 1 Gurumaa's senior-most disciple created the stage for her, which had a different incarnation for each of the two evening events. The architectural structure remained the same. On the night of Gurumaa's birthday, when various classical Indian musicians performed for her and 3,000 or so guests sitting in the audience, the spaces on the stage's backdrop were fitted with Hindu symbols; Lord Krishna dominated centre stage playing his flute, flanked by arches on either side with the large Sanskrit syllable, AUM. On the night of Gurumaa's sannyas diwas, when quawali singers performed for an even larger crowd at what one might presume would be a ‘Hindu’ celebration, the Krishna and AUM decorations were replaced with screens created to look like Mughal geometric latticework. As the stage was being disassembled the following day, I noted to one of Gurumaa's senior-most disciples that the naked base structure strangely resembled a mosque, mandir and gurdwara. She replied, ‘Yes, and it also looks like none of them!’
