A crowd of about 100 had assembled, their cameras were ready, and many had bouquets in hand, waiting anxiously outside a formidable fence set up by security at Changi Airport for an arriving star. About 50 of them had even come all the way from Malaysia.
This was the reaction of many in the crowd. After all, they weren’t there for the former wrestler-turned-actor, who flew in from Sydney last evening to promote his new movie The Game Plan, which opens in cinemas here on 1 Nov. They were waiting for Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, the founder of Sahaja Yoga, ‘divine mother’ to her followers, who was on the same plane. Singapore was a transit stop on her way home to India. Yes, there was a barrage of flashes from onlookers when Dwayne Johnson (The Rock’s real name), 35, strode into the Terminal 2 arrival hall. Wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, he walked briskly to his waiting car. He waved when this reporter yelled Rock, but did not slow down. He showed no trace of his vaunted charisma.
One person, Ms N. Nirmala, a government servant in her 50s, knew him only as a celebrity. ‘So many security guards around him, must be something special about him,’ she said.
Another onlooker, Mr Lim Pay Chye, an architect, did know who he was. ‘So skinny - not like the guy I envisaged on TV,’ he said. Was he disappointed? ‘In a wrestling sense, yes, but now that he’s acting, it’s totally different, what he has to look like,’ he said. Mr Chin Siong Chong, 39, an optometrist, was rather less impressed. ‘The Rock looked so serious. After he left, we felt more joyful,’ he said. To be fair, the poor turnout of Rock fans was hardly a sign of unpopularity, since his arrival was not publicised.
But for most of the crowd, seeing a Hollywood leading man in the flesh was just a ‘nice bonus’.
The main event was when Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, a benevolent-looking woman in her 80s,who was pushed out in a wheelchair, a few minutes after the Rock made his exit. Hushed silence took over as devotees crossed the now-open barricades to present her with flowers and ask for blessings. Others held out their hands, as if holding a book, towards her to ‘receive energy’.
Her followers believe that her teachings can help them achieve enlightenment and release spiritual energy or ‘kundalini’.
The distance to the white taxi waiting for her couldn’t have been more than 20m. Yet it took her 15 minutes to reach it as she received her followers patiently. They surrounded her like a swarm of quiet bees. For them, she was the real star.
