All Kinds of Magic: One Man's Search for Meaning Across the Material World (20 page)

For the first hour, I watched and listened. Mata-ji wore a brown tunic, beneath a turquoise sari. She smoked enormous
bidi
cigarettes – made from hand-rolled tobacco leaves and ground cloves – almost constantly, dragon-like plumes of smoke pouring out of her large, somewhat masculine mouth. Several blue bangles jangled on her left wrist, pink on her right. She listened intently, giving each
bidi
merely a few hefty puffs before tossing it away in a shower of sparks. She laughed often, and it was that, more than anything, which suggested some kind of altered state. It was one of the most raucous, booming laughs I’ve ever heard on a woman, and it seemed to heave up from her chest without restraint. In her eyes was a daunting strength: there was nothing it couldn’t subdue.

‘That fellow has money problems,’ explained Niraj, as a shattered-looking man with a hennaed beard pleaded his case. After touching Mata-ji’s feet reverently, he knelt before her, unburdening himself with an occasional wringing of the hands. ‘His hardware shop was always successful, but recently something has happened. Customers are not coming. Within a few months, he will lose his business if something doesn’t change.’

Mata-ji listened sagely, her eyes flashing through a fringe of sweaty grey hair. She held out her hand and the man passed her a package wrapped in newspaper.

‘He has brought earth from the floor of his house,’ explained Niraj. ‘She needs it to understand the situation, and to see if any curses are there. Earth is best, although rice is also acceptable if the house is modern.’

Mata-ji unwrapped the twist of newspaper and poured the earth into her hands. There was barely a teaspoonful of dust; she stirred it gingerly with her forefinger, then brought it up to her nose to smell. I felt there was something immensely logical about all this: that soil and rice, two objects at the very heart of rural Indian life, should be the telling substances.

Niraj translated as she asked her questions:

‘Has anyone in the house had dreams of an old woman or a small child?’ she asked. ‘If they do, you must pray for those people – they are spirits seeking peace.’

The man said that no one, to his knowledge, had dreamed of such things.

Mata-ji nodded, tossed away another
bidi
like a missile, and then held up her hands.

‘Now she will begin,’ whispered Niraj. ‘She will speak with the Deities.’

What followed was garbled at best, much of it verging on pure stream of consciousness. But some of it was translatable, and Niraj did his best to keep up. Had I not seen the oracle in Ladakh I might have been more bewildered. As it was, it felt not too dissimilar, and I watched with interest as her eyes lost their focus, and her voice turned thin; the woman she’d been vanishing somehow.

‘Oh Durga, Brahma, Kali,’ she cried. ‘Why are you meddling in human affairs? We, who give you
pujas
and offering, who worship you in form and beyond, are humans trying to lead peaceful lives. What have we done to offend you? What must we do to avoid your anger? Why won’t you leave us alone?’

Five minutes of this was followed with wailing, gnashing of her yellow molars and a final surge of anger.

‘Now she is
cursing
the gods,’ whispered Niraj. ‘She is threatening them. Oh dear, this is too much.’

I nodded without comment, but inwardly impressed at the astonishing confidence it must take to openly curse the gods in such a pious society. And truly she was herself a wrathful presence, both formidable and commanding, and with a gruff, crashing voice that suggested a weird and powerful state. For these few minutes, at least, my inadequacies of language were rendered unimportant: I could understand swearing when I heard it!

When her speech tapered out, she spoke again to the nervous shopkeeper.

‘Has anyone given you anything to bury in your house?’ Mata-ji asked.

The shopkeeper paled very suddenly. He was so startled he almost fell backwards off the temple dais and he put out a frail hand to steady himself. Several of the spectators began to tut beneath their breath.

‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘Oh God! An old friend has given me something to bury. Three months past. He told me it was valuable and I was to keep it for him until he asked for it back.’

‘Give it back at once!’ said Mata-ji, flatly. ‘That package is
cursed
and is bringing harm upon your household. Take it from your house this very night and return it. Then you must bring a Brahmin to your house and have it cleaned.
Puja
must be given to Kali. Incense must be burned. Several offerings will be required to bring peace.’

With his eyes fixed on Mata-ji the entire time, the man knelt before her, stammering his thanks.

She patted him on the head affectionately. ‘Don’t worry, my son, Kali has helped. Soon, business will be profitable again.’

After he had left, the next person explained his case. He had urinated beneath a tree, apparently, which had allowed a bad spirit to gain power over him. For a time, though, I was too stunned to pay attention. How on
earth
had Mata-ji known the other man had something buried in his house? More than anything I’d yet encountered on my quest, that truly seemed to speak of the supernatural. Sitting here, in this unlikely spot, I found myself blinking in amazement, and yet no one else around the temple seemed in the least perplexed. I resolved to carry on listening, to see if her other pronouncements showed such acuity.

The next woman, it transpired, had back problems. She could no longer stand up properly. Had someone cursed her? There was a woman in her village known for her ability with the evil eye – was it her? To my astonishment Mata-ji was shaking her head before the woman had even finished speaking.

‘This is a medical problem,’ she said. ‘You must visit your doctor. I cannot help you.’

After her came another patient, an attractive woman of about twenty-five with a gold stud through her nostril. She had metal hoops through her ear lobes and an agitated mouse-like face. When she began to speak her voice came in stutters, the words spilling over themselves. All of this reminded me that this wasn’t, in these people’s minds, merely a village elder giving advice. Mata-ji was an incarnation of divine power, a goddess in human form. Could anyone look upon the face of God without quailing?

‘I’m from Varanasi,’ she began.

‘
Acha
, I remember you,’ said Mata-ji. ‘You came before, two months past. Did you bring the rice I asked for?’

From beneath her white pashmina, the woman produced a package of cooked rice skilfully tied up in muslin. As with the earth, Mata-ji examined it for a time before beginning her dialogue with the gods.

‘That girl is wanting a child,’ explained Niraj. ‘Her husband’s family are becoming angry with her because she cannot conceive. See, behind her is the husband. He thinks it’s her fault.’

I made out a young, bullish man behind her, mobile phone protruding from his shirt pocket. He stood sullenly, crossing then uncrossing his arms, unable to look Mata-ji in the eyes.

Mata-ji put down the rice and began berating the gods once more. It went on longer this time, and her bony finger jabbed the sky insistently. Finally she bade the couple stand before her. She joined their hands together, then began to examine the palms of each, using the tip of a kitchen knife to trace the lines.

‘Brahma has written the story of our lives on the hand,’ she said to the husband. ‘Her hand is clean. But on your hand there are seven bad signs. Is this your second wife?’

The man’s eyes widened, and he nodded fearfully. All of a sudden the sullen confidence vanished to reveal a frightened boy.

Mata-ji tilted her head. ‘Other wife is deceased, is she not?’

Another nod. His lower lip fell open.

Mata-ji smiled. It was hard to tell, of course, but it seemed a knowing smile, seeing the bigger picture. ‘Take these flowers,’ she said, reaching to one side and picking up a garland of orange marigolds that someone had brought her. ‘Tread them on the crossing before your house, one by one, and I won’t need to see you here again.’

Clutching the flowers in a plastic bag, I watched the young couple walking away across the village. Again, Mata-ji seemed to have displayed an almost preternatural knowledge of their lives. How could she have known he had been married before? Nevertheless, no matter if her prescription worked or not, I admired her for what she’d done. Now at least, the young girl would not face pressure for failing to conceive: Mata-ji had laid the responsibility firmly at the husband’s door, straight from the gods themselves. It was almost poetic.

The morning stretched on. In every case, Mata-ji listened, enacted her strange dialogue with the Deities, and then offered her help. Perhaps the most serious case of the morning came when an old woman appeared, skeletal and slick with fever. Mata-ji summoned an attendant to bring a chicken from the farmyard, then nicked its crown so that a tiny fleck of blood dripped on to the blade. Although I was interested in the healing, I couldn’t help but feel for the chicken. It was released squawking back into the farmyard, and the other chickens began to peck at it savagely, aroused by the sight of blood. The poor bird ran this way and that, pursued by a rampaging mob. Finally, in a last desperate attempt to find safety, it leaped back on to the temple dais, then ran up to me and tucked its fluffy head beneath my leg. It lay there motionless, trembling faintly, and finally fell asleep.

As the last of the villagers thanked Mata-ji and went on their way, Niraj and I went forward. She greeted him warmly and accepted the money he offered without looking at it. Then she turned and looked at me properly for the first time. I felt a great kindness emanating from her. She gave one of her booming laughs.

‘What does this white man want?’ she asked Niraj. ‘Does he wish to ask the goddess something?’

‘Can I ask her how she got this power?’ I said.

She acquiesced. ‘I can tell him,’ she said. ‘I was twenty-two when I had a dream that I could heal people with problems. Kali came to me. The next day it so happened that someone came to ask me for help. Even as they stood there, I heard voices telling me how I could solve their problems.’ She shrugged, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. ‘Since then I try to do the best I can. Sometimes people go to priests for help, but the solutions they offer are only temporary ones. Problems can return. But when I get rid of something, it is gone for good. Kali works through me.’

‘My problems aren’t acute,’ I said. ‘At times I’ve suffered from depression and inertia. I’m seeking something beyond all that – but I can’t seem to reach it.’

Mata-ji smiled and beckoned me over. I sat cross-legged before her, looking respectfully down and waiting for her to begin. Before I knew what was happening, I felt her hands on my head, two rough hands, but full of maternal kindness. They were warm and they kneaded my scalp vigorously, then my shoulders, then came to rest.

‘Too much tension,’ she said, chuckling. ‘Mustard oil is good for the muscles. You should be doing this daily!’

I looked up aghast, wondering if I, too, was to receive practical rather than mystical assistance. But she was looking to the heavens now, and her eyes were glazed over.

‘Oh Durga, Brahma, Kali,’ she wailed. ‘You who remove all obstacles, please help this man. Help him find quietness. Help him find peace. Mahadev, please drive out the spirits from him.’

Suddenly, I felt the hands release, and I opened my eyes again. Mata-ji was smiling at me, and the interview was over.

That evening, back in the quiet of my room above Manikarnika Ghat, I reflected on the day. If Mata-ji was a goddess, then she was certainly one of the most down to earth, practical incarnations one could hope for. Her advice seemed largely sensible, and from what I’d seen there was nothing of her work which either took advantage of people or offered the potential for serious harm.

To decipher, in practical terms, what exactly she was doing was difficult, perhaps impossible. What was important was to understand the world-view she represented, and the seamless unity of her vision. For Mata-ji, life’s panorama extended far further than my own. Included in her gaze were innumerable gods, goddesses, protective spirits, demons and ghosts, all of which she had learned to control or placate. It was a holistic world-view, with nothing left unexplained.

Whether these gods and goddesses were ‘real’ might have been, at the start of my quest, far more important for me. But the more I saw of these things, the more it appeared that ‘reality’, as it seems to our rational consciousness, might be a concept far less relevant to one in trance. In such a profound state of attunement, who
knew
what Mata-ji was seeing and experiencing? Just because we couldn’t see something or prove it, did that make it less real? Could it not also be, that in the case of an entire culture fed by the same myths, that the same beings might appear again and again: the expression of profound human archetypes that push aside the conscious mind to come forth and express themselves?

Mata-ji, it seemed to me, was fully at home in the world she lived in, and had a world-view that functioned far more accurately and successfully than any alternative. Equally, I refused to believe that she would be in such demand, and others like her in villages across India, if she failed to help people – if, in short, her magic didn’t
work
. Something then
was
happening: a strange, imprecise power that smoothed away the boundaries and resistances of everyday life. Recalling the way she’d held my head that morning, I felt a nostalgia for a way of life I had never known. For who, in Western life, can we go to when things become too much, outside doctor, therapist, or friend? Mata-ji was that distant figure, authoritative but kind, who could advise on problems of any kind, ask the very gods themselves for help, and leave one heading home with a lighter heart.