Kidnapped Devotee's Ordeal Ends

She Returns to Fiance for Gala Wedding

Los Angeles-On November 7, more than one thousand guests attended the wedding of Madonna Slavin and Edward Watford, at the Sri Sri Radha-Krsna Temple. Madonna and Ed are known to friends by their Sanskrit names, Kulapriya and Srikanta. After the wedding ceremony they were the guests of honor at a reception and dinner. "I last saw such a beautiful wedding at the Raj Bhavan in Bombay, thirty years ago," said Mr. Kantilal Khetani, president of a large Indian cultural society.

Only a few short weeks before their marriage, the mood had been different. Professional "deprogrammers" hired by the parents of the bride-to-be had forcibly abducted her. For five days the "deprogrammers" mistreated her and shifted her to different locations on the California coast. The kidnappers threatened her with physical torture, confiscated her sacred prayer beads, and derided the Bhagavad-gita. On the sixth day Kulapriya escaped, and police flew her back to Los Angeles. She asked her parents to apologize and sign a statement that they would not again have her abducted; they refused. Still, she invited them to her wedding. "I want to continue our relationship," she said, "but they must respect my right to live by the religion of my choice."