I'm at a seminar as I type this, and another article is supposed to be published, but I had a mini-adventure on Wednesday night, which I'd like to share with you. This accounts for my pie-eyedness today (the fact that the seminar is putting me into a coma does not help).

Last night on my way home, an elderly family friend of ours called me up to say that a masseuse was coming to the house to urut her. Would I like to join Auntie? I said yes (I adore spas and massages), I was tired and would appreciate a massage.

When the tukang urut arrived two hours later, along with a family in tow, I knew she was no ordinary masseuse. She was tiny. She was sharp. She was young. She was a bomoh (shaman), and a good one at that too.

Grandmas

Alamak. What I wanted was a good rub, and a bomoh was not what I needed. And why in God's name Auntie required her services, I wondered.

Her name was Erin. A single mother, she used to live in Sabah and sell chicken rice to support her family. The gift, according to her sister (Erin's older brother came along too) was a generational thing. Seven neneks - old women spirits -lived with them, and they popped in and out of Erin's and another older sister's bodies, whenever they had a 'case'.

Erin, unlike other shamans, came well prepared. Now if you visit other healers, you'd have to bring bottles of mineral water, lime, seven types of seven flowers, peppercorns, empty bottles to catch spirits in and so forth.

This bomoh was a one woman 7-11 of supernatural goods. She came in with a huge picnic box full of betel nut leaves, kapur, incense, rice and the sundry mentioned earlier. She also had three different types of scarves (this depended on which nenek came to visit), a pack of cigarettes, hair pin and two spittoons. She was prepared for war.

Auntie had a condition: she had poltergeists living in her house. Truth be told, I think it's her mad cat that's bouncing on the roof, but she was worried, and Erin was there to help, so be it.

"She's really good, my dear," Auntie whispered, "she falls into a trance and then becomes this old woman. Her voice changes too! And you don't have to say anything to her she knows."

Exorcist Malaysia mari

So we waited for a good 20 minutes for Erin to be possessed. There was no way anyone could be possessed or sleep with the bomoh's three hyperactive sons clambering all over the furniture and house. I have never met such ill-mannered children in my life; what they needed was a good rotan.

Then it happened. While the boys screeched and jumped in the living room, their mother started swaying and making choking sounds.

"Gaak! Kluck! Aaaaaghhhh!"

Her eyes rolled backwards ala Linda Blair in The Exorcist and her arms flailed about before she fell to the floor, still gurgling. Within seconds she sat up straight, and hissed,

"Who wants to meet nenek?"

When Liza, my sister, and I were kids, we did that Exorcist thing a lot to frighten our cousins. My sister could do a mean impression of Linda Blair back then. I just screamed and spat a lot, and we drove our parents crazy.

I wished then, and I wish now I had brought my camera with me that night to prove to you that I met this young girl. At the very least, it would serve me as a memento of an interesting night.

After Auntie's counselling session, she pushed me forward.

"Nenek wants to know why you're here."

Nenek came up to me, with her eyes still rolled backwards, nose almost touching mine, and hissed,

"Tell me why you are here."

"I thought you'd know." (Wasn't she supposed to be psychic?)

"Apakah hajat kamu cucuku?"

God, I had a lot of wishes: I wanted money, I wanted a holiday, I wanted a...

"Please find her a good husband," Auntie interjected.

I just got out of a marriage and you want me to have another?

Eesh.

That was when the spitting started.

Nenek/Erin had been chewing the sireh leaves, and anyone that has chewed betel-nut and snuff would know that the taste is foul.

Ptui! Ptui! Ptui!

We ducked.

Then she whacked my back.

Thumpthumpthump.

I coughed.

"Hokhokhokhokhok."

Then she turned me around and thumped my miniscule chest.

"OW."

If she thumped my chest one more time, I'd have to go for breast augmentation.

Pet Pot

"Nenek Pet is from Madinah," Nenek/Erin said.

If you're from Madinah why are you talking in Indonesian?

"Nenek Pet is 600 years old. How old are you, granddaughter?"

"36."

"Don't worry. He's around the corner. He's there already, it's just a matter of when."

Knowing my luck, he'd be fat and crazy.

While I recovered in one corner of the room, Erin's brother ran around the house with an empty botol kicap. He was chasing toyols, he shouted at us. The boys scampered after him, laughing, shouting.

What a zoo.

Nenek started convulsing again, and within minutes Erin was back. Now this was when things got stranger.

Erin choked again and got up, and started to speak in tongues. She swore, giggled and made crude remarks at everyone. Her sister told us, oh, it was another nenek come to visit. She spoke only in Thai.

"This is Nenek Pot. She treats the insane."

Takes one to know one. And I swear I'm not making up these names. Pet. Pot. The other neneks must be Pit, Put, Pek, Pong kot.

Tourette's Syndrome. That what flashed across my mind as I observed the circus.

Once dismissed as a behaviour flaw, Tourette's syndrome is now known to be an inherited neurological disease. Patients afflicted with the disease can be anyone, and each experiences eruptions of tics - repeated, involuntary movements and uncontrollable utterances, can be unnerving. Some patients hoot, bark, cough. Some swear. The diagnosis? Bad habits. Nervousness. Demonic possession.

Should we forget?

It was 1am. We had spent over an hour chatting about pop stars, food and the cost of living in KL. Erin looked up and said it was time to go.

"You know what's frightening, sister?" she asked me.

"It's frightening to know that we Malays have forgotten traditional healing. We are in danger; there are so many foreign witchcraft in Malaysia now sihir Siam, Indonesia, Cambodia and there are so few of us healers left to protect people."
I nodded. All of us gotta make a living somehow.

Auntie made another appointment.

Like she, hundreds or thousands more will seek these healers' help. They need to be reassured that their future will be good. Praying to God and waiting for the Divine Answer take too much time. They cannot wait.

As I packed up to go home, Erin came up to me and said, "You don't need healing, sister. You're strong."

And I'm the Queen of England, I thought as I got into the car.

The neighbourhood I visited that night was a tony suburb. Yet the well-to-do and the poor are intrinsically the same: they all have hopes and fears.

DINA ZAMAN plans to sleep and watch Batman Begins during the weekend. If her journalistic career fails, she may try convulsing and speaking in Swahili. Bomohs make money these days. E-mail her at dina@malaysiakini.com.