Religion & Culture

KALI - THE DESTROYER OF EVIL - this Goddess is praised and revered around the country. her powers are unmatched and people on whom "the Goddess has come" are respected and feared by their neighbours. In the cold light of 20th century logic these might well be regarded as religious superstition.
However recently, neighbours of mine giving way to religious superstition, owing to a series of both minor and major disasters, went to visit a Swami who was reputed to have the most amazing powers. When they asked me to go along, naturally I did. Anything for a laugh was the general idea. Expecting a white haired, mystical looking individual I was quite dissapointed to find the most normal looking person clad in a pair of black pants and an orange shirt.

He took us into a small room at the back of the house and asked my neighbours their names and ages. Then shaking a bunch of cowrie shells in his hand he recited a few mantras and threw them on the floor. And told the couple in no uncertain terms what had been happening to them over the last few months down to exact dates and places. He then asked the couple if they wanted to do the puja that wuold remove the spell that the husband's family had put on them.

The price for the puja was astronomical, but the couple agreed. So back we all went the next day in the evening. The husband and wife and I sat down in the puja room and the swami hung a garland of "rudrakshas" around the husband's neck. Then taking the sword that hung from the side of the Goddess he cut open his right thumb and anointed the statue with blood. He then asked the husband to tie up a few lemons and a figurine in a cloth and immerse it in a bowl of water, cover the bowl and keep his hand on the cover throughout the ceremony.Then he chanted a few more mantras and the husband began to sway around in the most alarming manner. When he stopped the swami asked him to open his eyes and remove the lemons and the statue from the bowl. All the husband could find was the cloth they had been tied in.

We were then asked to go home and return the next morning. We reached home at 5.15 pm and by 5.20 pm the husband was fast asleep to wake only at about ten at night to eat like a horse. He went back to sleep and was very drowsy when we returned the next morning to the swami. The swami chanted a mantra and suddenly the husband was bursting with energy. The swami gave the couple two charms (tavis) and instructed them to wear these at all times. As we left I happened to look at his right thumb. There was no wound, no scar.
The couple are two weeks to the date doing very well. Life has straightened out for them in the most surprising manner and I have been left a sense of being a little awry and completely out of my depth. Science cannot explain what I saw.