TRAVELOGUE-MY FIRST REAL TRYST WITH THE OCCULT

1,000 w

Kolazhi

04.09.2009

TRAVELOGUE –MY FIRST REAL TRYST WITH THE OCCULT 

I was born a Kshatriya or a warrior  in the house of the Zamorin , the erstwhile ruler of Kozhikode in the present State of Kerala, India, which is where Vasco De Gamma landed after his historic voyage in search of the sea route to India and obtained trading concessions especially for spices from the Raja. The “Zamorin” exists to this day and has the distinction of being the only Indian prince who still draws the privy purse (compensation) which the government of India shamelessly withdrew arbitrarily, retracting all their earlier promises to the contrary, when the then strongman and Home Minister, Mr. Patel gave them the option of willingly acceding to the newly Independent India or having to forcibly annex their vast properties, belongings and jewelry. 

At that time and even now, in the northern part of kerala, where this story commences, we followed the Matriarchal system, whereby the children adopted the name of the mother’s family house as prefix to their name. Since time immemorial, our women have always strong and had equal rights with men right from their birth. 

My tryst with the occult started in the house where I was born. It was called kuttichathan’s  kavu(abode). Kuttichathan is a small demigod in Hindu Mythology with wide powers for helping or harming people. Some consider him to be the mischief maker for the devil but I have seen him worshipped amidst our gods and many dedicate themselves to his service.

 My formative years were in this house and we would often hear and see stones raining incessantly exclusively on our roof and my mother would tell me that we should light an oil lamp in a small temple for Kuttichathan located at the entrance of the estate gate so as to appease his anger at being ignored and not getting his obeisance. Surprisingly, after regular lamp lighting there, the stones raining stopped altogether. 

By the time I was five years old, I had extracted most of the stories about K.ChathanAnd other astounding stories from the maids and old men and women who visited our house. 

Young though I was, I learnt that people of the lower caste, especially women were not allowed within the 4 walls of the castle or kovil-agam and were considered untouchable by the royalty but many of these girls were beautiful and buxom and the envy of some of the raja boys who would go out of the kovilakam to exploit them physically with their consent. That these girls were obliged to move about topless was another aphrodisiac for the young royalty. 

When I was just seven years old, my grandfather, a specialist surgeon, took me with him for a 3 day camp of the interior hilly villages of Tindivanam near Pondicherry. It was on these hills that I first witnessed the practice of the occult so rampantly and publicly. The nights were colorful and brimmed with activities relating to blatant indulgence in witchcraft culminating in taking “KALI”, the Goddess of War in a palanquin amid chanting of Vedic and magic verses, to her ultimate destination on the hillside temple ,ending in offerings of Animal Sacrifice and liquor to appease her. Whether it was the Goddess who was appeased or the revelers themselves is a matter of personal opinion. 

It was on these hills that I had my first tryst with serious black magic. During the day, I was left in the care of the family of Mr. Dos, a wealthy land owner and close friend to my grandfather. One wet and cloudy morning at around 07.00 hrs, Mr. DOS’s 17 year old son Anthony, asked me to accompany him if I was strong of heart .Always ready for an adventure I acceded and followed him. After a 40 minute trek, we reached a clearing with only one Tamarind Tree nearby. Anthony drew a circle of about 2 meters with a stick bade me to sit just inside it and hold my nerve. Soon my host unpacked many pooja (prayer with lit fire ) ingredients from a bag he was carrying, lit a fire with the special twigs he had brought with him and commenced loud chanting with ghee ablutions. An hour passed and my friend was still stretching his vocal cords to its limit, when a tall well built very dark colored man approached the Tamarind tree, threw a rope over a strong branch,, tied a noose round his neck and hanged himself to death in front of our eyes. The time was exactly 08.45 Hrs. 

Anthony then stopped his chanting; cut down the body loose, brought it inside the circle, placed it with the head pointing east and again commenced his chanting with more fervor. 

Thirty minutes into this, he suddenly stopped, took my hand and stepped out of the circle and started briskly walking westwards, warning me repeatedly not to look back at any cost. Curiosity took the better of me and after some time I ventured a sly look over my shoulder and what I saw shocked my senses. There, following us was the man who had hung himself and whose body we had left in the circle. 

When I confronted my friend Anthony with this phenomenon, his narration shook me to my very roots. He said that this man actually committed suicide by hanging the previous day at 8.45 a.m. due to a land dispute with his father was adamant and refused to carry out the necessary funeral rites to bring peace to the soul of his departed son. 

 Anthony conducted these rituals of to extricate the dead person’s wandering soul and make it his slave. Whatever we had seen was a hallucination but the rituals had succeeded and this soul would be a powerful and dangerous subservient tool in his practice of Black Magic. 

I took my second sly look and lo, there was nothing! 

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