In Trance-it: RIP Anand pt 3.

Follow-up to part 1 & part 2. Sorry for late entry.

That night, the Indian cop gave us an address to go to, namely a temple where certain form of “exorcism” were conducted. Not sure if Harry Lee knows this, but who cares our need err…needs to be attended first, which is to make Puruso eating, sleeping, living & farting human being again, not a furniture gnawing freak.

The cops left, slightly disappointed because, let’s face it, there we were, unruly, rough, young lads of Indian extract and they didn’t get to shoot us. Soon, after they left, Puruso was back in action, and things would have gone awry again if not for Jegan’s quick action. Yes, he turned Kali again and took care of the situation, though he hinted that he needed more stuff they use in typical Hindu related activities like lime, the Kungumam and Holy Ash. The temple would have them all. The priest will take care of our buddy tomorrow.

Or so we thought.

The location itself was interesting. Or should I say, freaky. We had to get off a bus going to Pasir Ris, and it was a jungle. A real jungle. In Singapore. Which reminds me of a question posed by my ex-colleague when sometimes recently I mentioned that Singapore indeed have jungle.

Ex-colleague (reader Gopal here, in fact): Did they have Orang Asli in it?

Anyway, it was a lush tropical jungle with cleared pathway leading god knows where. As we walked on, we saw on our right, a wooden house with two very large, black dogs. The dog did nothing, they just watched us. Did I mention they were large? And black?

In the distance we saw some clearing a small makeshift temple in it. And not without passing some of the tallest tree I’d seen in my life…with eagle’s nest in it! Okay, wait, I am not saying it’s the Eagle’s Nest and Lee Kuan Yew is Hitler, though many taxi drivers there would agree with the latter tag. It was an actual eagle’s nest, with frickin’ eagles on it. Black dogs, eagles, and I tell ya, all those horror films are not exaggerating.

So, there were my cousin Anan, Puruso The Possessed, Jegan the Kalee and Murugaiah the Cry-baby and I in one of the freakiest place in Singapore which is okay considering why were are there in the first place. The temple had a priest in it, who looked like a priest, complete with big belly and all.

We sat on the floor directly in front of the central deity, goddess Mariammal (another incarnation of Kali), and told him our problem. It didn’t take Puruso couple of minutes before he started getting uncomfortable. It didn’t take the same couple of minutes for Jegan to get real comfortable. In shorter period than you can say Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of them were at it again.

Except this time, Puruso was a lot more subdued, uncomfortable looking, but very subdued. Jegan, in Kali form, started demanding lime, and those forehead ashes, and started the ritual of cutting the lime, applying the ash, spitting on it, squeezing and stuff, if in another environment, like laboratory, looks like serious scientific experiment. I kept looking at Anan, making sure he doesn’t go rampaging in the jungle looking for a female elephant. Truth be told, he looked scared.

And then, the moment came. The Kali kept pointing Puruso’s neck, barking loudly, as if he was a canine and the neck was a postman. We tried reading from the charades on many messages, “he got dirty neck?”, “He swallowed a ghost?”, and “You want to strangle him? You need my help?” and so on, until someone, I think Murugaiah, remembered, “You want his (wooden bead) necklace?” The Kali nodded.

Puruso, removed it and gave it to Jegan, and Jegan quickly threw it away, it flew about 25 metres away and disappeared into the jungle. Then, he calmed down and regained his “consciousness”. What the hell?

After serious questioning, we found out that Puruso actually picked up the beads from a beach recently, and yes, he had been behaving differently since then. Something came with the beads and stuck with, or rather, inside him and “came out” when our buddy here lost his cool.

Of course, right now I can think of many explanations to what had happen, but I won’t let science interfere with this interesting memory. And I had tagged it with my late cousin, Devanan and we always talked and laughed about it many times when we met later. Many, who pass away, leave behind good or wonderful memories. But my cousin left me with a suspense thriller with a bit of supernatural thrown in. Awesome, Anan. Rest in peace.