Netflix docu-series Searching For Sheela to be released on 22 April, see trailer

Love her or hate her, the controversial Rajneesh spokesperson Ma Anand Sheela aka Sheela Birnstiel is coming to Netflix on 22 April to tell her side of the story in a docu-series. Produced by Karan Johar’s Dharmatic Entertainment, Searching For Sheela follows her anticipated return to India in 2019.

The trailer opens with Rajneesh stating, “People who don’t commit crimes don’t escape like that.” It quickly moves to show Birnstiel arriving back in her home country after more than three decades. Bimstiel, former spokesperson for the Osho movement, had spent time in an American prison for attempted murder and assault for her part in the 1984 Rajneeshee bio-terrorism attack in a small Oregon town.

Birnstiel is now retired and lives in Switzerland, but the curiosity about her infamous life was reignited with the Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country. On her India trip, she is greeted like a long-lost hero and interviewed by personalities like Karan Johar and Barkha Dutt.

The docu-series, which features filmmaker Shakun Batra as showrunner, aims to shed light on Birnstiel's time in America as a follower of the guru Rajneesh, later known as Osho. Speaking about what has been told about her so far, she claimed, “It is Bhagwan’s history, not Sheela’s history.”

Watch the trailer below and let us know if you are keen to see the series.