A couple of weeks ago on the way to a neighboring village an advertisement in the bus caught my eye. It was a woman astrologer/priestess/witch advertising her services to the public at large. Since then I have seen her ad on at least two other Madurai buses. Is "witch" too pejorative of a word to use in your research? Well, I am calling her a witch because she practices witchcraft. She's got spells to use on your family, on men, on women, in school, on the job, and to make you rich. She also has cures for malignant astrological influences. She'll read your horoscope and your palm while she's at it.
I never really paid much attention to witchcraft until I moved to this neighborhood. Around these parts it's being practiced constantly, and usually it's wives who use it to control their husbands and to quote "make them like an obedient dog circling around your leg." Interestingly this form of witchcraft, vasiyam or mai as it is called in Tamil, seems to more often turn men into drooling idiots which I suppose is a form of control which could result in obedience. If your mother-in-law is bad, you'd better hope she doesn't get a hold of a magical lemon from one of these witches because she might plant it under your threshold and destroy your life. One of these days I'm going to write up a post just on the uses of lemons in Tamil culture. Because these little devils have dozens of uses and can convey mad powers, both auspicious and malevolent.
So, I had seen this ad in the bus and got curious. It turns out she lives in the same neighborhood as my painting teacher. I asked him about her and not only does he know who she is, it turns out his younger brother ran off with her 35 years ago. It turns out she was having a puja consecrating a new Kali temple that she has constructed right next to her house (usually a no-no as Kali is a ferocious goddess that you aren't supposed to worship in your home, as she is easily angered by the slightest errors and lack of diligence regarding ritual pollution. The priest at this puja was very careful to advise her on this.) My painting teacher informed me of the puja and I went there along with my trusted associate/research assistant.
When we arrived they were in the middle of the sacred bonfire (a.k.a. yaaham) and the priests were pouring oblations of ghee, milk, curd, honey and other auspicious items into the fire. The high priestess (who shall remain nameless as I am shit scared of her) immediately received me like royalty and put a garland that weighed several pounds on my neck. The puja stopped long enough for me to be photographed and videotaped (apparently these media would later be used as advertisements for the temple!) This really angered one of the actual VIPs in attendance, a woman who had donated Rs. 50,000 towards the construction of the temple. She ended up pouting and stomping out of the puja at several points. She was 100 times scarier than any witch and I certainly hope she doesn't scrawl my name on a lemon in a fit of rage.
After the photos and video were taken the puja resumed. The priest began to pour what he called "blood" into the sacrifical fire but I consulted a neighbor and discovered this was fake blood consisting of kungumam and honey -- which is a good recipe to keep in mind for Halloween. The room was so smoky that even my Tamil associate had to run outside gasping for breath. There were drishti pumpkins and lemons everywhere. The lemons came in handy at the end of the puja (post-abishekam) when the priestess received the garland off the Kali idol and immediately became possessed. She was flailing all over the room and the Brahmin priests (who I imagine aren't accustomed to possessions) tried desperately to control her. She actually fell ONTO THE FIRE which as you can see below is actually quite significant. She was unscathed. The priest called for a blessed lemon and they held her still long enough to squeeze the juice into her mouth at which point she immediately became calm and Kali left her. I think my research assistant doubted the authenticity of this possession for reasons I won't get into here, but both of us were too scared of divine retribution to consider the matter further.
At the very end of the puja we took blessings from the priestess. My research assistant prostrated, I took some kungumam from her, and then we promptly high-tailed it out of there. I was scared they were going to demand tens of thousands of rupees from me, and the VIP lady was boring holes into my head with her eyes. Turns out we left before the distribution of prasad, and they ended up sending a bunch of lemon rice and other tasty items to my painting teacher's house for us. I felt really bad for escaping like that, mostly because the hostess received me so nicely and it seemed rude to leave, but I also felt bad for escaping because I am scared of angering said hostess. And for good reason because I don't want her using her lemons against me.
I was pleased to note heavy use of drishti pumpkins in this puja.
Kali puja was carefully documented by video camerafor subsequent digital darshan.
My painting teacher painted this as a drishti prophylactic outside the new temple;He did it for free. As he put it, you've got to keep your friends close, and
practitioners of witchcraft closer. A smart policy.
