A Bengali actress once told me about her husband's dalliance with another Bengali actress' aunt. The husband, who has a strong connection with Calcutta, was so mesmerised by his girlfriend that his wife was worried about the many expensive gifts, including an apartment, he was showering on his lady love. The husband had moved out, into a small ground-floor apartment, where he lived on his own without his family. The wife was so convinced that her spouse was caught in a spell that she went to her husband's flat, in his absence of course, to get hold of "proof" that a pir baba had warned her about. According to the fakir, the girlfriend had done black magic on the husband and evidence would be found where he lived. She was told to look for bones and strange things like a bit of cloth in the soil. She looked around and voila, in the small potted plants in the balcony outside, there it was. She found what she was looking for inside a flower pot.
The husband soon returned home, the spell broken. But the wife had the feeling that the girlfriend's entire family practiced black magic. When a leading filmmaker fell head over heels in love with the girlfriend's niece, the gossip vine sourced his ardour to her family's trysts with black magic. She's got him in her grip, they whispered. But if truth be told, the niece and the filmmaker who're happily married, seem to be more in bliss than under a spell.
Another Bengali actress was rumoured to have sacrificed a black bull at a Kali temple for her son's floundering career. The bull died, the career didn't quite revive.
When a much-married villain died in Mumbai many years ago, his girlfriend was reported to have also sacrificed a black bull at midnight to bring on his doom.
All of these have remained in the realm of conjecture with no proof whatsoever.
There was another young actor who made a promising start with films that co-starred many leading heroines. Although a reliable actor and a pleasant person, he lost his way in his career despite a couple of sex comedies doing fairly well at the box office. Now, this actor was friendly with an elderly lady who supposedly had a "gift". It was not a romantic liaison, it was more like an aunt-nephew equation. However, acting under her guidance, the young actor was soon being cut off from his own family. Once again, it was food that the clairvoyant was cooking and feeding him that was said to be the controlling factor. In fact, even I was advised not to eat anything in his house that she was serving. The actor is now happily married and the aunt-like figure doesn't seem to be around him anymore.
But what do you do when a star spouse is supposed to have her husband under a spell? After a senior actor strayed many moons ago, his wife supposedly brought him back to the fold by using the same yucky black magic potion that Kangana was later accused of mixing into her boyfriends' food. But this senior actor is said to be still under the control of his triumphant wife since he's stayed by her side thereafter. Pure gossip, once again.
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