No one knew where he was from. He landed up in the
small town of "Ammainayakanoor" which was more or less a big village,
one fine summer morning and stayed there for almost twenty-five years. It was
not during his stay there that I happened to encounter him but it was much
later in 1989, that I actually met him. Being intrigued by the guy I made an
effort to learn about his past and I’m penning here whatever limited
information I could glean about him from mutual contacts.
As I mentioned earlier he landed up in
Ammainayakanoor on a summer’s morning in 1965 and was found loitering around
the small bus stand there. He was about 35 years old and appeared to have a
very strong physique. He sat in one corner of the shelter in the bus stand and
put up a small hand written note on a dirty piece of card board collected from
a used carton.
The board announced that he was a palmist and a
fortune teller who could predict the future and suggest remedial measures for
those with defective futures. Nobody really knew if this guy had studied
palmistry but he seemed to be rather accurate in his predictions and soon
people of this small town started flocking to him for sorting out their worldly
problems. Very soon he became popular and within a year he had rented a small
house adjacent to the bus stand from where he practiced his trade.
For those of you who are not familiar with rural
Tamil Nadu, I must explain that Ammainayakanoor is located in the foot hills of
the hill range on which the towns of Kodaikanal and Palani are located. Hardly
a kilometre north of Ammainayakanoor is a train station called “Kodai Road”,
which is the transit point for those proceeding up the hills to the tourist
resort of Kodaikanal. Ammainayakanoor is found on the highway between Dindugal
and Madurai which are two bigger towns than those mentioned earlier.
Being at the foot hills of the hill ranges, the
climate of Ammainayakanoor is rather pleasant and not as hot as the arid plains
of northern Tamil Nadu. It’s location at the foot hills has also contributed to
the fertile nature of the soil and the town is surrounded by lush green paddy
fields, coconut groves as well as vegetable and fruit gardens. Since the town
was on a major highway connecting the North and South of Tamil Nadu the town
was economically prosperous, until the late 70’s when a bye pass road
connecting Tiruchirappali with Madurai was put up circumventing Dindugal and
Kodai Road and subsequently the town began to loose its pre-eminence.
Masanam, for that is the name of the fortune teller
who set up base at Ammainayakanoor, found the economic prosperity of this small
town good for business. It was during this time that Masanam got involved with
certain tantric practices which enabled him to give birth to what is commonly
known in these parts as “Kutti Chathan” or “Djinn” meaning a ‘small Shaitan’ or
little devil.
You must be wondering what I mean when I say that
he gave birth to a “Kutti Chathan”. This is just a figurative way of saying
that he created a Djinn using certain tantric practices which involved the
aborted fetus of a to be first born child, including recitation of certain evil
mantras to produce an evil force which is neither the soul of a human being nor
a living object of any kind. This“Kutti Chathan” which I shall hence forth
refer to as KC had the ability to make itself invisible when need be and could
permeate into other worlds to gather information which Masanam found necessary
for practicing his trade.
A KC grows just like a human being but without the
physical body of a human being. A KC is usually nurtured with recitation of
evil mantras as well as sacrifices offered to it. The KC could enter into any
human being and cause the human being to obey the commands of Masanam. The KC
could also kill a person as well as communicate with other evil spirits and
gain secret information from the past or the future as was necessary for
Masanam's trade.
Initially Masanam used to feed the KC with small
birds and other fowl which he would buy from the market and sacrifice by night
to the KC which would enjoy the blood and the flesh of those poor birds. Masanam’s
power over the people of Ammainayakanoor knew no bounds. He could destroy
people at will and at the same time ensure the prosperity of his clients using
his evil powers which were aided by the presence of the Djinn.
If a person came to Masanam saying that his or her
wife was having an affair with someone else, Masanam would ensure that the
affair was broken up and that the person who indulged in an illicit
relationship with the spouse of Masanam’s client was totally destroyed.
Similarly if a client came to him stating that he or she coveted somebody who
was not responding to his or her overtures, Masanam could cast a spell on the
person so coveted so that they would voluntarily come forward to satisfy the
lust of Masanam’s client.
There are many such incidents that I can go on
narrating. I came to know of one such instance where a wholesale distributor of
vegetables and fruits collected from the region became Masanam’s client since
his business was not doing well. Masanam used his evil powers and his pet, the
KC to destroy five business competitors of this wholesale trader within a short
span of three months which left his client, the vegetable and fruit wholesale
trader, with a monopoly over his line of business leading to his making huge
profits in a short span of time. Moreover when the wholesaler wanted to marry a
young girl as his second wife and when the girl’s parents objected to it, it
was Masanam who sent his KC to kill the girl’s parents and force her to marry
his wholesale trader client. There were many more such stories of the evil
perpetrated by Masanam.
As mentioned before, during the early stages
Masanam used to feed the KC with birds such as chicken and pigeons. However the
KC was soon dissatisfied and wanted bigger offerings from Masanam. Masanam
started to buy pigs and goats from the weekly shandies – markets - that were
held in the other small towns surrounding Ammainayakanoor. Soon the KC’s
appetite grew bigger and it began to demand bigger animals such as buffaloes
and oxen. Though Masanam was earning a lot of money by utilizing the KC and
could easily buy as many buffaloes or cows as the KC wanted, he was unable to
explain to his neighbours the mysterious disappearance of animals that were
procured from the weekly markets. The KC soon became unsatiated with these
animals too and used to visit the neighboring farms by night to attack, kill
and eat the cows and buffaloes in the neighborhood.
Dissatisfied with all these animals the KC soon
started to demand human sacrifice. Moreover the KC insisted that only first
born male children who had not yet experienced any sexual relationships should
be provided to satisfy its hunger and thirst. Masanam found himself in a catch
twenty - two kind of situation and found no other alternative than to provide
for the wishes of the KC. As time passed the people of the town soon started to
wonder about the mysterious disappearances of animals and humans in the
neighborhood.
It was around this time that Ammainayakanoor
started losing its preeminence due to the construction of a new bypass road
connecting Trichy directly with Madurai making it unnecessary for all vehicles
to touch Dindugal and proceed to Madurai. Moreover the period witnessed severe
drought as never witnessed during the past forty years. The economy of the town
was badly hit and the people began to suffer.
It is human nature to find scapegoats for our
troubles and very soon the priests of the temple in the small town who were
affected by Masanam’s arrival in the town began to spread the word that it was
Masanam who was responsible for all their ills and that the Gods were angry
with the people of the town for having allowed Masanam to settle down amongst
them.
The people of the town gathered together and
decided to drive Masanam away from the town. It was during the annual festival
of Goddess Mariamman the avatar of the Mother Goddess Shakthi that the priests
of the town decided to set their plan in action. They had unwittingly chosen an
opportune moment for it was said that during the entire duration of the
festival which would last for seven days the town was under the protection of
the presiding Goddess and that no evil force could face the wrath of the deity
for the entire seven days of the festival once the temple flag was hoisted. Therefore
it was not possible for Masanan’s KC to enter the town to protect his Master
during those seven days.
Moreover during the annual festival people from far
and near used to throng the town and all those who had originally hailed from
the town but had migrated to bigger towns and cities in search of livelihood
used to return to the town with all their kith and kin and spend the seven days
of the festival with great joy and fervour. The priests managed to instigate
all the local people as well as the visitors to the town against Masanam and on
the fifth day of the festival an angry mob comprising of the people of the town
surrounded Masanam’s abode with sticks, sickles and stones.
As the younger children pelted stones on the tiled
roof of the house, the elders set fire to the house. The noise and the heat
made Masanam rush out of the house only to face the angry mob who started
beating him with their sticks and a few of the enterprising youth landed deep
slashes on the arms and torso of Masanam with their sickles. The KC who could
not do anything to protect its Master during the seven days when the temple
flag was hoisted for the festival witnessed the onslaught that rained upon
Masanam as he was driven street after street by the chasing mob until he was
well outside the boundaries of the town.
Finally when Masanam had managed to flee quite some
distance away from the town he rested for the night under a huge banyan tree
while the KC attended to Masanam’s injuries. The KC had regained its evil
powers once it had crossed the boundaries of the town and used its powers to
miraculously heal the cuts and wounds on Masanam’s body. Within minutes it had
managed to make Masanam completely alright and there was no trace of any injury
on Masanam’s body.
Masanam sat through the night and assessed the
situation. He realised that all the property and wealth that he had amassed
could not be reclaimed for he dared not set foot in the town ever again.
Finding himself suddenly brought to penury he decided to proceed on foot to
Madurai which was much bigger than Ammainayakanoor and therefore suitable for
him to hide himself and chalk out future plans.
The journey to Madurai was a long walk of sixty
kilometers and Masanam managed to sustain himself by obtaining food on the way
from the houses of small villages that existed along the highway. Meanwhile,
the Djinn managed to find small animals and birds that happened to stray along
its path and subsisted on them. Masanam did not plan to stay in the heart of
Madurai for he had no money and no means of raising money in the urban
environment. He therefore plodded on across Madurai and moved to the southern
outskirts of the city where one of the famous temples of Lord Muruga as Lord
Karthikeya is known in the South is located in a place called
Thiruparankundram.
The temple at Thiruparankundram is known to be one
of the six holy abodes or temples of Lord Muruga and is located at the bottom
of a small hill which is called Kundru in Tamil, from which the place had
derived its name. The temple is so built that it is abutting the hill and any
devotee who wishes to go around the temple has to go around the entire hill on
a small road built around the hill. On the other side of the hill is a small
pond where devotees bathe after tonsuring their heads. Close to the pond is a
small cave outside which a Punga tree grows. The cave is supposed to be the
place where the great sage and Tamil poet Nakeeran had performed tapas. Tamil
epics have portrayed this sage as one who even challenged Lord Shiva for
opening his third eye in unwarranted circumstances.
It is to this cave that Masanam and his Djinn
proceeded for he knew that the cave would be an ideal place for him to rest
during the monsoon and he could also start plying his trade once again outside
the cave and under the Punga tree.
It was at this spot that I accidentally met Masanam
about a year later.
Madurai happens to be my favorite town in Tamil
Nadu for it was here that my entire life was altered and a junkie became a
regular guy.
During this period it was my habit to seek out
quite places where I could spend time on meditation and prayer. I used to
explore the suburbs and villages surrounding Madurai for ideal locations to
practice this art. On one such occasion I had taken along with a very elderly
friend who was almost seventy years old to do a recce around the hill of
Thiruparankundram to find an ideal location for our needs.
I still remember the day very clearly in my mind.
Both of us were walking on a bed of rocks near the temple pond found behind the
hill when a crow swooped low over the pond, picked up a dark coloured fish
about the size of my palm and flew towards a neighbouring tree. Midway in
flight the crow could not control the struggling fish in its beak and dropped
the fish on the hot bed of rocks hardly ten feet away from me. My aged friend
and a few others who were watching this incident from further away were spell
bound and motionless as the fish struggled for life on the surface of the hot
rock. After a few moments, being unable to endure the struggle of the fish, I
rushed towards it, scooped it in my cupped palms and ran to the waters edge
where I released it. The fish floated flat on the water as if it were dead for
awhile and after a few moments wriggled its tail and plunged deep into the
darkness of the pond.
We then proceeded on our search for a quite place
and reached a Punga tree under which we noticed an old emaciated man sitting
bare bodied except for a saffron dhoti around his waist. The tree was hardly
fifty metres away from the spot where the fish had fallen down and this old man
had been watching the entire sequence of events. He called me politely and I
walked up to him to demand the reason for his calling me. He gave me a plastic
bottle filled with water and asked me to wash my hands and then come and sit
beside him. Being curious to know what he wanted of me I did as per his bidding
and came and sat next to him while the aged friend who had accompanied me
looked on curiously.
The man extracted a cloth bag of the kind used to
keep betel leaves and took out a neatly folded piece of red silk cloth which he
quietly began to unfold. When he had opened the cloth I found that there was a
brown, stiff, hair like object lying in the middle. The man extracted the object
and asked me to hold it between my right thumb and forefinger. I did as he
ordered and to my surprise found that the stiff hair like object began to
rotate rapidly like the seconds needle on the dial of a clock while I firmly
held one end in my fingers.
The man then told me that the brown wiry hair like
object was a piece of the root of the Sanjeevi tree and that it was very
difficult to obtain since only birds such as the eagle had the ability to spot
the tree and its roots and that such birds used the root to line their nests,
which would be located very high up in the mountains. He also told me that
since the root had rotated rapidly in my fingers I was one of very few people
to whom he could entrust something very valuable. I believed that the old man
was taking me for a ride and was trying to con me of a few rupees and therefore
laughed at his suggestion. He appeared dead serious and told me not to laugh
since he said that certain powers had pointed me out to him through the
incident of the fish that fell from the beak of the crow.
I continued laughing and told him that the
so-called Sanjeevi root would circle in the same manner as it had done in my
fingers even if anybody else were to hold it. The old man then said that he
could prove that this was not the case. He therefore asked my old friend who
was accompanying me to wash his hands and come and hold the root just as I had
done. My friend did so and to my surprise I found that the root remained
stationery in his fingers and did not even budge a little bit.
The old man then said that since the powers had
pointed me out to him he wanted to hand over something very valuable that he
possessed and that I could use that which he wanted to handover to gain
undreamt of riches. He also said that he wanted to make amends for his past and
that by handing over what he had to me he would be able to wash away his sins.
I was in no mood to be burdened with the sins of others for I myself had a lot
of dirt that I had to clean up and could not accept the sins of others on my
head.
I asked him what it was that he wanted to hand over
to me and he told me that it was a small baby that he wanted me to nurture and
bring up. I wondered out loud how a bachelor like me – I wasn’t married at that
time – could take care of a baby to which the old man replied that it was not a
physical baby but an invisible baby that he was referring to.
I was completely perplexed but at the same time
curious to know what he was actually talking about. I therefore decided to lead
him on until he told me everything about the so called baby. I asked him what
it would entail. He told me that it was nothing much and that I would have to
recite for forty eight days a mantra which he would secretly teach me and also
keep an object which he would give me in a clean and secluded space where I
could sit and recite the mantra.
He also explained that at the end of the forty
eighth day the object which he proposed to give me would become a baby and I
could use the baby to do anything that I wished in this world. He further added
that I would only have to feed the baby and that I could easily do that with
the kind of wealth and treasures that the baby would lead me to. It all sounded
too easy for me and being a suspicious fellow by nature, I felt that there were
some strings attached which the man had not yet revealed to me I therefore
probed once again as to what the old man expected from me in return for the
gift of the baby which he was willing to give me.
The old man looked into my eyes solemnly and said
that the only thing that he expected was for me to accept him as my Guru and
worship him. On hearing this I was infuriated and told him that I already had
found God who was performing wondrous things in my life and that I would never
ever accept the old man as my Guru, nor would I worship him. The old man kept
trying to convince me that what he wanted me to perform was just a mere token
and that I could continue to pray and learn from God while also accepting the
old man as my Guru. He added that he was at the verge of death and that it was
his duty to pass on his knowledge to someone worthy of it and that his soul
would rest in peace only if he did so. I told him to hand it over to any one
else but not me. He said that it was not easy to find a person who was suited
and that it would be a tough task to search for such a person at his old age. I
flatly refused and the old man kept on trying to persuade me until I left the
place shortly.
A couple of months later, I managed to find time to
visit Madurai once again and as was my wont, I visited my old haunts to spend
some time in prayer. On one such occasion I went along with the same aged
friend, to the Punga tree where we had met the old man, only to find him
missing. I managed to strike up a conversation with one of the locals there who
was hunting birds with an air gun and the local told me that the old man who
was named Masanam had died a miserable death one night at the very same spot
hardly a month ago. He further told me that no one knew how he had died and
that when the people of the locality had found his body the next morning it had
looked like some strange beast had ripped apart his innards and had eaten his
heart. I was shocked at this news.
Much later, I happened to meet some one from
Ammainayakanoor who knew about Masanam and his slave the Kutti Chathan and this
person told me of the early days of Masanam and how he had been driven out of
Ammainayakanoor and taken up residence here under this Punga tree and lived in
penury without the means to support himself and his Kutti Chathan. The KC who
had all along been used to a rich diet had been unable to accept Masanam’s self
imposed seclusion and in a fit of hunger and anger had taken the life of its
own Master.
