May 27, 2021 • 56 mins
This time on the podcast, the story of an invisible war. Shots are fired. Injuries sustained. But how do you fight an enemy you can't see — one that may not even exist?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Kelley Lynch (00:02):
They say that travel broadens the mind.
And while this is undeniablytrue, what they don't say is
that asking your mind to reckonwith a bunch of things that
don't jive with yourunderstanding of reality is not
all unicorns and rainbows.
As I stepped off the plane inBangladesh way back in 1995, I
(00:23):
had no idea that packed inamongst the clothes and
toothpaste and shampoo andvitamins in my suitcase was a
grab bag of unconscious beliefsand assumptions about, well,
pretty much everything.
And unlike the toothpaste andshampoo and vitamins that I had
to carry into the country againand again, over the years, the
(00:46):
supply of these beliefs andassumptions was seemingly
endless.
Over the nine years we livedthere.
I was confronted again andagain, with what I thought I
knew about the world and how itworks.
People believed things and actedin ways that seemed crazy to me.
They did things I foundinteresting and amazing, but
(01:08):
also shocking baffling,frustrating, and just plain
stupid.
It took time, but eventually Icame to understand the obvious;
that there is more than one wayto make sense of the world.
And with curiosity, instead ofself-righteousness, as my guide,
(01:30):
I was finally able to givedifferent people and different
ways of seeing the world, thebenefit of the doubt.
I learned to think not justoutside the box, but outside my
beliefs.
(01:50):
Welcome.
I'm Kelly Lynch, and this is anew normal this time on the
podcast.
You guessed it.
Another story from Bangladesh,this one I didn't go looking
for.
It found me at home where itbecame a matter of daily life
for almost two years.
(02:12):
And in that time, it demandedthat I reckon with some of my
most basic assumptions about howthe world works.
What's more, it asks questions,real questions, the answers to
which could be a matter of lifeand death.
(02:34):
Just to note, before we getstarted, that all the names and
identifying details have beenchanged to respect people's
privacy.
Chapter 1 (02:53):
Chapter 1
Kelley Lynch (02:53):
Standing here at the kitchen counter.
Sulata shows me the weapons thatwere used in the most recent
attempt on her life.
A scrap of threadbare cloth, afingernail clipping along strand
of hair.
And then now empty metal bullet,a half inch long cylindrical
(03:15):
container that hangs from apiece of black thread.
She picks it the mangy mass witha straight pin and pulls out the
worst of it.
A small piece of string withnine knots, painstakingly tied a
few millimeters apart, balancingit on the end of the pin.
(03:36):
She holds it out for me to seeone knot equals one year.
They gave me nine years to liveI'm on the last one.
Sulata is o ur m aid, but moreprecisely she's our household
(03:59):
manager.
She's devoted and h ardworking.
She loves our kids like a motherand has only ever missed three
days of work in more than sixyears.
Until recently, a few weeks ago,she started complaining about a
sharp pain in her right side,just under her ribs.
(04:21):
A couple of days ago, she saidthat the pain had gotten so bad
that she was up all nightcrying.
So I sent her to see one of thebetter medical doctors in this
part of town.
Monday, he gave her somemedicine for the pain and
Tuesday an ultrasound turned upa small polyp in her
gallbladder, not likely to bethe source of her pain, He told
(04:43):
me over the phone and nothing torush into action over.
He suggested taking a wait andsee approach.
And in the meantime, taking someover the counter painkillers,
but the pain continued and gotso bad that late Friday night,
Sulata and her husband, Joseph,who happens to also be our
(05:03):
driver turned up on our doorstepasking for some time off.
The Western medicine, wasn'thaving any impact whatsoever.
They were going to see atraditional healer known as a
Kabiraj, a few hours outsideDhaka.
While they were gone, Josephcalled with regular updates.
(05:26):
They had found the source of theproblem.
Sulata was receiving treatmentand she was getting better.
And this morning, just six dayslater, here she is walking
through the kitchen door, fitand healthy as if nothing ever
happened.
I brought something to show you,she says.
Wait, here.
(05:46):
She disappears out the back doorand returns b earing the little
bundle we've just dissected.
But I'm confused.
I'm having a hard timeunderstanding what this little
bundle of dirty string and clothand hair and fingernails packed
inside.
A rusty silver amulet that she'scalling, a tabiz has to do with
curing Sulata.
(06:08):
We've been through it five timesalready.
Sulata is becoming impatient,but trying not to show it.
Somebody buried the tabiz in thedirt, she says, moving one hand
under the other so I can't missthe burying part.
And then with it, they shootbaans on me.
(06:30):
Baans?
I a sk what a re baans?
Joseph steps into the kitchen.
And Sulata looks to him tosupply the word she's looking
for.
Arrows, he says, baans are likearrows.
They give her name on the tabizwith the mantra, and then they
shoot her.
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He makes a zooming sound andtraces the sharp trajectory of
an arrow at Sulata with hispinched fingers.
Now I get it.
I say, we're talking about somesort of Black magic voodoo
thing, Joseph and Sulata nod inunison relieved that we're
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finally getting somewhere.
But if it was buried, I ask, whofound it and where did they find
it?
The kabiraj found it, she says.
It was buried in the ground,maybe near my house, maybe
somewhere else.
But then how did the kabirajfind it?
(07:34):
I ask.
Images of someone with a shovelknee deep in the dirt outside
Sulata's house come to mind asdo needles in haystacks.
I can't understand how anyonecould have possibly unearthed
such a small bullet cum arrow inany sizable patch of ground, but
I'm on the wrong track again.
(07:56):
She brought it, Sulata says.
But how, how did she bring it?
How did she know where to look?
I start to explain about theshovel and the mounds of dirt
and Sulata and Joseph laugh sohard they're almost crying.
When Sulata can speak again, shesays, no.
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She brought it by mantra withholy words.
That's when I understand thatwhat w e're having is not just
another one of our all toocommon language mishaps, nor is
it a conversational malfunction.
It's a wholesale belief systembreakdown.
(08:38):
Sulata and Joseph look at me forsigns of comprehension.
She brought it by mantra.
Sulata says again.
She's exasperated with theeffort of trying to make me
understand, and we'e not for theintrinsic appeal of the subject.
I would be exasperated with theeffort of trying.
Joseph says something to her inBangla and Sulata tries another
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tack.
She explains how the kabiraj putrice in Joseph's hands.
And then she put some flowers ontop of that and then more rice
and told him to rub the lotbetween his palms while she said
a mantra.
And then what happened?
I asked.
Joseph opened his hands and thiswas there.
(09:22):
She says.
But how could it just be there?
I say.
It can't have come from nowhere,but it seems that's where I'm
wrong.
Their world is not bound by thesame laws as the Western world I
grew up in.
It's a world where magic stillhappens.
Where powerful words canapparently manifest something
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out of nothing.
Now I am more prone than most tosuspending disbelief in these
matters.
But once I understand what we'retalking about, I find myself
trying to work out the trick.
I ask if the kabiraj told themto close their eyes, or if she
touched Joseph's hands.
(10:06):
But Sulata and Joseph are not atall burdened with my Western
skepticism.
We saw her bring it with our owneyes, they say.
And for them that's enough.
When we finished picking throughthe contents of the tabiz,
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Sulata takes it outside andstarts a little fire on the back
steps.
The kabiraj refused to tell themwho was shooting the baans, but
she did say that Sulata musttreat the weapon with the
greatest of care until it goesup in smoke.
The kabiraj who made the tabizcould use his own mantras to
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call it back if he discoveredthat it was missing and then he
could do some serious damage.
These are the kinds of beliefsthose of us who tend to put our
faith in the twin gods ofscience and Western medicine
usually dismiss without so muchas a second thought.
But when Sulata goes out to burnthe tabiz and its contents, I
(11:09):
head straight for the bathroom,slather my hands with soap and
give them an extra good scrubjust in case some of its
powerful magic has rubbed off onme.
While I'm at it, I'll give thehairbrushes a good clean as
well.
Chapter 2 (11:31):
Chapter 2
Kelley Lynch (11:31):
This isn't my first brush with stories about
the powers of black magic yearsago.
I knew a woman, a matronlyno-nonsense American woman in
her late fifties, who wasdefinitely not the sort of
person to be given to wildimaginings or magical thinking.
She told me that several yearsbefore she and her husband had
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been living in Brazil, when hesuddenly became seriously ill,
they went to see a Westerndoctor who ordered the works-
tests, X-rays scans, all ofwhich turned up nothing.
Her husband was bedridden andwasting away.
More Western doctors wereconsulted to no effect.
(12:15):
And yet it was clear that herhusband was dying.
Having exhausted every otheravenue, she was so desperate
that one day she found herselfin the house of a voodoo
practitioner.
At the first consultation, shewas sent away with a shopping
list that included a chicken,some eggs, and a few other bits
and pieces.
She was told to come back at theappointed hour on the following
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day.
She returned followed orders tokill the chicken with her own
hands and made the offerings asdirected.
The voodoo practitioner thencast the bones, which revealed
that her husband was the targetof somebody's black magic.
The practitioner offered someritual words and gestures and
sent my friend home.
(12:58):
When she walked through thedoor, about an hour later, she
was shocked to find her husbandsitting up in bed.
Within a few weeks, he'd made acomplete recovery and had been
healthy ever since.
I asked my friend how shethought he'd been targeted.
She speculated that it couldhave been any of the usual
culprits, fingernail clippings,a piece of cloth, a piece of
(13:20):
hair from a hairbrush, but shehad no doubt that it was the
voodoo that cured him.
So when I see that Salata isback to her old self and that
the cure seems to have stuck, Ifind myself thinking that maybe
there's something to thiskabiraji business after all.
(13:42):
But then only a month later,Sulata is sick again.
This time with an entirelydifferent set of symptoms.
Her body is swollen.
Her skin getting noticeablydarker, her joints aching.
And she says, her limbs feellike they've been broken.
It's the baans, she says.
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The arrows may be invisible, butthe pain is real.
She tells me that it's bearablewhen she's at our house, but it
gets worse when she goes homeand continues to build as the
evening goes on.
Her body hurts so much that shecan't sleep.
So she sits up all night cryingand praying that God will let
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her die.
Relief comes at dawn when thecall to prayer breaks over the
rooftops.
As Joseph later informs me, thisis an important point when it
comes to matters of baans anddark kabiraji.
Whatever religion you follow andSulata and Joseph happened to be
Christian, this holy sound willdisperse all the evils.
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In Sulata's case, this is thetime when the curtain of pain
lifts, and she's granted a fewmerciful hours of sleep.
After being sick for almost aweek, she and Joseph decided to
travel again to see the kabiraj.
A few days before they leave.
I asked Joseph, if he's takenSue lotta to see a medical
(15:10):
doctor again.
He says that for the past twoweeks, every evening after work,
they've been making the roundsof the clinics doing blood tests
and x-rays providing urine andstool samples- anything and
everything a host of doctorssuggest might help secure a
diagnosis.
Despite the fact that she'sclearly not well, none of the
(15:32):
tests has turned up anything andthe just-in-case medicines the
doctors have given her, haven'tworked either.
Joseph tells me that now he'smore convinced than ever it is
black magic they're dealingwith.
And that kabiraj is the only onewho can help.
Chapter 3 (15:57):
Chapter three.
Kelley Lynch (16:00):
Once again, for someone so sick, Sulata makes a
miraculous recovery.
After only one Saturday sessionwith the kabiraj, she's back at
work again on Monday and feelingfine.
This time when she comes in theback door, she motions for me to
follow her into the bathroomwhere she lowers the folds of
her sari at the waist to revealan extra large tabiz, one that
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will protect her from new baans.
She whispers that I mustn't tellanyone about it or about the big
news.
The kabiraj has named the otherparty in the fight.
It's no wonder she refused totell them before, for this is
dangerous knowledge indeed.
It's one of their closerelatives.
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And this time the kabiraj inmeditation over a bowl of water
has seen that instead of buryinga tabiz in the ground to work
its magic against her, theirrelative and the evil kabiraj
that is in his employ haveworked together to make a doll.
They've given it Sulata's nameand have been smashing it bit by
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bit with a hammer.
That's what's been causing thepain in her joints and the
blackening, which of course isactually bruising of her skin.
But why would a relative want todo this to you?
I ask.
I've met this person and theydon't seem like the kind of
person who would want to hurtanyone much less a member of
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their own family.
But as with most things in thiscountry, what I don't know and
don't understand could fillanother 43 volumes.
Sulata explains that this is notjust an isolated chapter, but
only the latest in a far longerand more sinister story than I
ever suspected.
(17:49):
She starts to whisper the story.
After 20 minutes, I lean back onthe sink.
After 45, I close the lid to thetoilet and have a seat.
This is going to take a while.
It seems the first target oftheir relatives banns was
another family member.
This man had held down good jobsin Dhaka for many years, but now
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found it impossible to stickwith anything.
However hard he tried, he wouldalways end up doing something to
get himself fired, or he wouldquit for what he later said was
no reason at all.
As a result, he was forced tomove back to the village where
he eked out a living as afarmer.
Maybe he just doesn't want towork for somebody else.
(18:36):
I say to Sulata.
Maybe he likes being a farmer.
Maybe he likes being in thevillage and living with his
family and doing his own thing.
But Sulata is adamant.
It's the baans.
They shot him so he can't workin Dhaka.
Now he's getting poor.
He's selling his land.
He wants to work in Dhaka, butevery time he gets a job here,
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he turns around and goes backhome for no reason.
I might argue about the cause,but not the fact.
The year before I had arranged acouple of job interviews for
him.
And while he did come to Dhaka,both times, he ended up packing
his bags the next morning andreturning home, without
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explanation, before even meetingwith the prospective employer.
The next person to fall victimto the baans was another close
family member.
Having recently started arelatively lucrative job in
Dhaka.
He fell sick and like Sulatarepeated visits to various
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doctors and rigorous teststurned up nothing.
He continued to lose weightuntil eventually he was so weak
that he had to quit his job.
And having spent all of hismoney on doctors, he too was
forced to retreat to thevillage, to work as a farmer.
For both men, the baansprevented them from going
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anywhere near Dhaka, which wasthe only place they could earn
some real money.
All they had to do was enter thecity for the bands to take
effect.
And so now they're shooting me,Sulata says.
But I can't understand whyanyone especially a relative
would do that to any of you, Isay.
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They don't want us going higherthan them, she says.
I'm buying land.
My children are going to school.
But when you do well, that helpsthe whole family, I say.
Some people think like that, shesays, but some people just care
about themselves.
They want to knock everybodyelse down so that they can be a
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big person while we have to stayin the village, getting poor.
Chapter 4 (20:51):
Chapter 4.
Kelley Lynch (20:53):
This is war.
And as in any war, one mustemploy strategies for both
defense and offense by way ofdefense, Sulata and Joseph have
decided to move house.
When she's in pain, it's alwaysworse when she's at home.
The kabiraj told them thatduring her meditations, she's
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seen that there are a lot ofother tabiz planted in and
around the house.
So many that even the sevenjinns or spirits that the
kabiraj enlisted to look aroundthe house, couldn't sweep them
all up.
But it's not all bad news.
The spirits were dispatchedagain last night.
This time they went to what willbe Sulata and Joseph's new
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house.
They uncovered a few tabizlurking in the corners, but all
of them have now beenneutralized.
By way of offense, Sulata andJoseph have engaged a second
kabiraj to return fire.
The one they've been seeingrefuses to engage in dark
kabiraji, but this new one hasno qualms about shooting back-
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even if it means shooting tokill.
But Sulata and Joseph don't wantto go that far.
They tell me they plan to startsmall first.
They'll have the new kabirajfire the baans that will cause
their family member to break aleg.
Chapter 5 (22:12):
Chapter 5.
Kelley Lynch (22:21):
It is several weeks before the next shot in
the invisible war is fired.
Predictably, it's on a Saturday,which is one of the two days
each week that kabirajs inBangladesh are open for
business.
The other being Tuesday.
Sulata tells me that on the wayto work, the stone in her
protective ring fell out orotherwise disappeared.
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She shakes her head.
That means they're at thekabiraj again.
On Tuesday, her pain starts upagain.
This time she says, it feelslike someone has tied a rope
around her stomach.
She can't sit, can't eat.
And her feet feel as if they'reon ice.
Sulata gets on the phone andrelays a message to the kabiraj,
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who promises to find out what'sgoing on.
If the evil kabiraj has madeanother tabiz to attack her, the
kabiraj will find it during hernighttime meditation.
The next morning I'm not at allsurprised when the kabiraj calls
to inform Sulata that anotherpowerful baans had indeed been
shot.
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She has seen the tabiz.
She tells Sulata to come see heragain on Saturday so t hat she
can call it in.
This is all getting more than alittle bit predictable, but
there's also something new.
Today she has a message forJoseph.
In her meditations, she saw thathe's the next.
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He must be very careful whenhe's driving less the baans
cause him to have a potentiallyfatal accident.
This is the moment wheneverything changes.
Suddenly this is no longer justanother strange chapter from my
life in Bangladesh.
It's personal to hear that ourdriver possibly with my children
(24:10):
in the car, maybe in mortaldanger.
I mean, what do you do withthat?
It's tempting to dismiss thiswhole thing as so much Hocus
Pocus or a bid for the kabirajto rope in more paying clients.
I mean, Sulata now spends almostevery weekend at the kabiraj,
(24:30):
hemorrhaging money in exchangefor protection from invisible
arrows, but I've seen and heardtoo much over these past few
months to just wave it all away.
My belief in the power ofkabiraj i or lack of belief
takes its place in a mentallineup alongside some of the
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many traditional Bangladeshibeliefs.
I've dismissed as superstitiousnonsense.
Over the years, people have toldme that it's bad luck to travel
long distances on a Saturday,cautioned me against drinking
water after eating fruit,because it would definitely
upset my stomach and warned methat if I sneezed or stumbled on
my way out of the house, Ishould wait a while before going
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out lest I get into an accident.
There were other beliefs thatseem more scientifically minded,
like the change of seasonsexplanation people gave any time
I got sick and injunctions tocover my head when I was out and
about at night to keep thecondensation off.
Over the eight years I've livedin Bangladesh, there have been
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so many times that I haverighteously insisted on the
absolute truth of cue the airquotes what I, as a Western
educated person know to be true.
And as a result of that, knowingI have lectured and insisted on
doing things my way only to findmyself humbled and occasionally
(25:58):
even humiliated by the trainwreck that almost inevitably
followed.
It was so chronic in the earlyyears that I have now come to
hold what I think of as avariant of the"when in Rome"
adage except as it applies tobeliefs.
After all, these are the nativebeliefs of this land.
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They developed in response towhat people here have seen,
experienced, felt and learnedover the course of thousands of
years.
And while that doesn'tnecessarily make them true, it
does mean they deserve a littlerespect.
Many people in this country,including some Western medical
doctors that I've met, believefervently in all of this.
(26:44):
What if yet, again, everybodyelse knows something I don't.
What if there's something tothis kabiraj i business after
all.
One thing is for sure, if any ofus is ever going to ride in the
car with Joseph again, I have tofind out.
So when Sulata and Josephinformed me that they're off to
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see the kabiraj again, over theweekend, I tell them that I'll
be joining them and I'm hiringanother driver to take us just
in case.
Chapter 6 (27:19):
Chapter 6.
Kelley Lynch (27:21):
We arrive at kabiraj Niti Chanda's house at
7:00 AM on Saturday.
Joseph's brother, Michael meetsus there.
Nobody else is waiting as wetake up seats on the low stools
outside her corrugated ironhouse.
From around the corner, a bellstarts up and a voice croaks, a
song to the tune of a vaguelyfamiliar Christian hymn.
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Niti is from a tribe known tooutsiders as the Gorrow and to
themselves as Mandi.
It wasn't so long ago thatgenerations of missionaries
finally succeeded in subsumingthe Mandi's traditional animist
beliefs under a Christianumbrella.
Today, the Mandi effectivelylive on tiny islands in a sea of
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Bengali Muslims that issurrounded on three sides by
Hindu India.
The words to her song, a mix ofBangla, Mandi, and Hindi reflect
the mix of cultures.
When the song pauses for amoment, Niti's husband, a thin
man in a threadbare lungiwearing a white cotton tank top
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inclines his head in thedirection of the music.
You can go in now, he says.
The song starts up again and wefollow the music around the edge
of the veranda to a smallwindowless room.
We slip out of our shoes andduck under the curtain of red
hibiscus that cascades over theroof.
Without a word, we arrangeourselves on several cane mats
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behind Niti Chanda.
The only light in the room comesfrom three candles on a low mud
alter.
When my eyes adjust, I see thatthe kabiraj, dressed in a
heavily starched red sari, isseated facing the alter.
The candle light catches on afestival of tinsel decorations,
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hanging overhead, and thegarlands of plastic flowers
draped over the arms of a woodencross below.
Beneath the cross are threestatues of the Virgin, Mary
smothered in flower stoles.
And though Nitti considersherself a Catholic, I note that
pride of place is given to anamorphous black stone that sits
at the foot of the cross in theexact center of the altar.
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Resting on a bed of red hibiscusand spotted with dabs of red
powder, it is a representationof the Hindu goddess, Kali.
When she finishes the song Niti,delves into a stack of old
diaries.
She pulls out one embossed withthe legend 1994, leafs through
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it and recites the words writtenthere and reading.
These, I later learned, are themantras that Kali gave her when
Niti first started to receivethe great goddesses powers nine
years ago.
When she finishes, Niti snapsthe diary closed, returns it to
the stack and turns to face us.
(30:24):
On the way here, we stopped tobuy rice candles and incense, as
Niti had instructed.
Niti asks us to pour the riceinto a kula or threshing tray on
the floor.
Meanwhile, the kabiraj riflesthrough a little orange box and
pulls out several k nottedstrings and a few broken arms
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and legs that used to belong toa statue of Kali.
She arranges these on top of therice, covers each with a red
hibiscusc, dabs red powder onthe threshing tray and s tabs
two smoldering sticks of incenseinto the rice.
Using a small knife, she cuts aMandala into the mud floor, dabs
(31:06):
it too with red powder andcovers it with a cup of water
that she tops with another redhibiscus.
The preparations finished, Nititells us that when she was in
meditation, looking for thecause of Sulata's trouble, she
saw that this time, the badtabiz is wrapped in something
sharp.
To bring it into anybody's handslike she did the first time
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Sulata came to see her mightcause a prick, unleashing evils
more severe than those she'sattempting to undo.
That's why today's tabiz must bebrought into something safe, the
cup of water.
With that Niti turns to face thealtar, ready to start the work
of bringing the tabiz.
(31:53):
Eyes closed, she runs one of theknotted strings through her
fingers, repeating a mantra overand over that I can't quite make
out.
When she's made one round of theknots, she tosses the string
over the cup of water, and it'sa hibiscus, picks up the small
knife and taps it repeatedly onthe black Kali stem.
Then she picks up the cup,thrust the knife through the
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hibiscus and clinks it back andforth, back and forth faster and
faster in the cup as shecontinues to repeat the mantra.
Rain begins to pound the tinroof overhead the knife clinks
faster and faster.
The mantra is repeated fasterand faster until the kabiraj
runs out of breath.
The first attempt to retrievethe tabiz ends in failure.
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Niti pours herself, a glass ofwater and turns to face us.
Breathless, she says, we'll tryanother way.
She points at Michael, do onefinger like this, she says
tapping her index finger rapidlyon the edge of the threshing
tray.
And on my signal, she saystopping the cup of water with
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another red hibiscus, push thisflower into the cup and stir.
Niti takes a few deep breathsand turns again to face the
altar.
She taps the Kali stone with herknife then stands, takes a deep
breath and this time grasps thewooden handle of a small bell
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with both hands.
Wringing it furiously, shebegins to intone the mantra.
She nods to Michael.
He taps his finger on the Kula.
She nods at him again and heplunges the knife and the
hibiscus into the cup and stirsclink, clink, clink, clink.
(33:41):
She rings the bell faster andfaster.
As she runs out of breath themantra picks up pace.
Michael stirs and taps fasterstill.
Tap, tap clink clink.
When suddenly Niti stops cold.
She turns and looks down atMichael.
Didn't, something come, shedemands.
(34:01):
Michael says he heard somethinghit the rice in the Kula, but
since he was expecting whateverit was to come into the water,
he didn't say anything.
Niti, isn't interested inexplanations.
She pounces on what looks like awinged insect about the size and
shape of a Cicada sitting on topof the rice.
You should have told me, shesays.
Niti drops the insect thing intothe cup of water.
(34:24):
Pours the water out over herhands and lunges at Sulata.
She rips aside Sulata's sari andkneads the tabiz water in her
hands onto the exposed flesh ofSulata's stomach blowing on it
in short manic puffs.
More kneading, more blowing asthe water from the tabiz is
massaged into Sulata's back.
When the water dries Sulatapulls her sari back into place
(34:47):
and we fall into a little circleon the c ane m at.
Niti rolls a cigarette.
Lights it draws deep andexhales.
She places a tiny oil lamp infront of us and looks into our
faces with anticipation.
She smiles as she unfastens thesafety pin that hangs from her
necklace and with its sharp endbegins to dissect the tabiz.
(35:15):
What looked at first glance likewings are actually fish fins.
Underneath them, the littlesilver bullet of the tabiz is
wrapped in the black flesh of adecomposing gecko.
Niti loosens the strings thatbind it and then unpacks the
tabiz itself, holding out eachbit over the tiny lamp and
(35:36):
giving it a name.
A piece of hair, bits of aninsect, some other flesh, she
can't make out, a sharp thorn,and another k notted string- all
stuffed into a tiny cylindricalamulet not more than two
centimeters long.
The gecko, Niti explains, wouldh ave been caught and then
(35:59):
killed slowly as the bad kabirajwound i t tighter and tighter
around the tabiz, and finally cinched it together with the
string that held the three fishfins in place.
Dangerous magic indeed, andSulata reasons, the reason that
she's been feeling squeezed,unable to eat, or even sit down
(36:21):
comfortably.
Joseph, Sulata, and Niti makeplans for a follow-up visit to
get a new tabiz for protection.
Then Sulata hands over the moneyfor today's session and everyone
is happy.
Except me.
I was so busy watching Niti forany slight of hand that I missed
the main event.
(36:42):
Michael tells us again andagain, how out of the corner of
his eye.
He saw this thing fly into therice, coming straight out of
thin air.
As they talk.
I look around for logicalexplanations.
Niti is wearing a sari, so shecan't have had anything up her
sleeve.
She also had both hands on thehandle of the bell, the entire
time of that I'm sure.
(37:03):
So there was no way she couldhave thrown it.
While it was all going on.
I became convinced that thetabiz must already be in the cup
of water that Michael wasstirring and he was just too
distracted to feel it.
But then it ended up coming intothe rice.
Could someone have thrown itthrough a hole in the ceiling?
No, the roof was entirelysealed.
(37:26):
Perhaps Ntti had set it up sothat it was poised to fall from
the low rafters.
But how could she have dislodgedit when she never touched
anything but the bell.
Had she perhaps hypnotized us insome way?
Definitely not.
I'd been watching her closely,like I've been watching her all
along and here's the thing, NitiC handa does not act like
(37:49):
someone who has something tohide.
She's welcomed me takingphotographs, recording
everything, watching, askingquestions.
Either she's so confident in hermastery of illusion that she
feels she has nothing to fear orshe really does have some sort
of power.
Chapter 7 (38:19):
Chapter 7
Kelley Lynch (38:24):
When we finally emerged from Niti's chambers
we're greeted by a disorderlyqueue of about 20 patients that
winds along her veranda andspills into the courtyard.
While in theory, such popularityshould tip the scales in her
favor, t's actually the singlefactor that pushes me towards
greater skepticism.
Because in talking with all ofthese people, I learned that
(38:47):
almost every one of thesepatients has a story that is
more or less a carbon copy ofSulata's.
One father has done the roundsof the medical doctors with his
11 year old daughter, but noneof them has found anything
wrong.
So he's come here because he'sheard that Niti's good with
these kinds of cases.
(39:09):
The old man who's next in linehas also seen many Western style
medical doctors.
They can't find anything wrongwith him, but he keeps losing
weight and doesn't have thestrength to work.
Behind him is a young man who'scome to consult the kabiraj on
behalf of his 63 year old motherwho is so sick, that she's in
the hospital.
(39:30):
She's not responding totreatment.
And the doctors have no ideawhat, if anything is wrong with
her.
And so it goes with one patientafter another.
By the time we've talked withmost of the assembled patients,
it's the young man's t urn tosee the kabiraj.
He says, we're welcomed to comein and watch the kabiraj work on
(39:50):
his mother's case.
Joseph and I follow the youngman into Niti's consultation
room and melt into a corner fromwhere we watch a repeat
performance of what Sulata andJoseph described happening on
their first visit.
Niti talks with t he young manthen says a mantra and closes
her eyes looking to see ifthere's an e vil tabiz lurking,
(40:13):
somewhere that might be causinghis mother's illness.
I'm not at all surprised whenshe says she's seen one to bring
it.
She repeats much of what we'vejust seen only like Joseph and
Sulata did the first time theywent there, she fills the man's
palms with rice and flowers andtells him to rub the lot
(40:34):
together between his hands.
After a few minutes, the manstops.
He says he feels something.
When he opens his hand, theresits a rusty tabiz.
Niti, once again, unhooks thesafety pin from her necklace and
unpacks it.
Inside are the usual culprits,fingernail clippings hair, a
(40:57):
piece of cloth, a thorn and apiece of knotted string.
Already, it seems far toofamiliar.
Before he leaves the young manhands over the equivalent of
almost$20, half of his monthlysalary for the treatment.
It's a good indication of howdesperate people are, but it
(41:19):
also makes me think that if Nitiis a magician, she better be a
damn good one.
This is a lucrative business.
One that has, after all turnedthis poor farmer's wife into a
renown and wealthy kabiraj.
Chapter 8 (41:34):
Chapter 8.
Kelley Lynch (41:42):
When we set off for Dhaka later that afternoon,
Sulata is feeling fine and themood in the car is buoyant, but
then almost an hour and a halfinto the journey, something goes
wrong.
Sulata cradles her head in herhands.
She says her head is throbbingand her stomach is twisted and
(42:03):
knots.
Joseph sitting in the front seatnext to the substitute driver,
throws his head back against theheadrest and grabs his hair with
his hands.
What just happened?
I ask.
We've just crossed into Dhaka.
Joseph says.
The bad kabiraj is shooting heragain.
His eyes brim with tears.
(42:25):
This world, or this country cango to war, but I am all the time
now having my own personal warall the time they're shooting
baans.
It's always worse on Tuesdaysand Saturdays, Sulata says, her
eyes have closed.
And without another tabiz toprotect me, look how fast they
(42:47):
got me.
Now I'm asking myself how I canstay here on this earth?Joseph
wails, the tears staining hisface, a darker shade of brown.
Sulata's sick.
Again, we spend all of our moneytreating her, but she keeps
getting sick.
How can I pay the rent?
(43:09):
How can I support our fourchildren?
Soon I will have to sell my landto pay for treatment and still
they're shooting baans at hermore and more God, can you see
me?
He pleads with the roof of thecar.
Can you see my trouble?
(43:29):
And that's when I decide thatthis whole bloody kabiraj i
business, if not a big sham, isa complete waste of time and
money.
This is ridiculous, I say.
We have to take Sulata back tothe Western medical doctor
tomorrow, but the baans Josephsays.
If you keep on like this, you'regoing to spend all your money
(43:52):
shooting and protectingyourselves from stupid invisible
arrows, I lecture.
It's a war with no end.
Look at all those people.
Look at yourselves.
Everybody with the same story.
Everybody going back and forthto the kabiraj weekend and week
out.
You may as well just hand overall your money to her right now.
(44:15):
Look, I'll go with you to thedoctor.
I'll make sure we get to thebottom of this.
At least if he finds somethingmedically wrong, there's a good
chance you can cure it and bedone with it.
Joseph is desperate enough thathe hears me and his faith in
kabiraji waivers long enough forhim to agree.
Tomorrow we'll take Sulata tosee the doctor again.
Chapter 9 (44:37):
Chapter 9
Kelley Lynch (44:50):
The next evening, there's a Stony silence in the
car on the way to the doctor'soffice.
The more I've thought about it,the more fed up I've become with
their willingness to attributeevery ache and pain Sulata has
to invisible arrows.
And Joseph has had enough timeto think about all of this to
decide that he's fed up with myinsistence on attributing
illnesses solely to otherinvisible evils called viruses,
germs, and bacteria.
Sitting in the doctor's busywaiting room, my white skin
ensures that we're called intohis orderly chamber without much
of a wait.
In his officious manner, thedoctor rushes us through the
briefest of histories ofSulata's illness.
(45:31):
Then turns his focus on what'sgoing on now.
When I try to flesh out thepicture, explaining how her
illness has migrated and mutatedover the last number of months
from the pain in her side, forwhich he initially saw her to
pain in her joints anddiscoloration of her skin, and
now a pain in her stomach.
To explain how it grows worse atnight and how Sulata and Joseph
(45:54):
had seen numerous doctors whodid numerous tests.
The doctor cuts me off anddemands that Sulata tell him
what's wrong, which is of courseas it should be.
But the normally stoic Sulata,whines and moans such that even
I don't want to hear it.
She says there's a pain in herback.
There's a pain in her stomach,but there is no mention of the
(46:17):
host of symptoms we've beendealing with for months.
And of course, none of usmentioned the kabiraj.
The doctor cuts her off anddemands to see the papers for
all the lab tests she didseveral months earlier, before
they went to see the kabirajthat second time.Joseph looks
puzzled.
Papers?
The doctor ushers us out thedoor and tells us to come back
(46:39):
when we've got the papers.
Joseph tells Sulata and I towait while he goes home to find
them.
More than an hour later, hereturns with a disheveled stack
of receipts, hastily, scribbled,prescriptions, and
unintelligible lab results.
(47:01):
Minutes later, we're sitting infront of the doctor.
Again, he flips through thestack pausing now, and then to
examine a smudge carbon copy ofone lab result or another.
As he rifles through them, heasks, have you taken all of
these medicines?
Sulata nods.
The doctor tosses the stack atus across the desk.
(47:22):
Well, that's a shame becausethey've done all the wrong
tests.
The results you have here meannothing.
We'll start over with a stooltest and a blood test.
We'll see what, if anything theyshow and go from there.
On the way out, I lecture Sulataand Joseph about the importance
(47:44):
of building up a medical historyand keeping their files in good
order.
Since doctors here don't keepanyone's records for them.
They nod.
I tell them they should workwith one decent doctor instead
of trailing around to everycheap clinic in town.
They nod.
I tell them they must follow upwith this doctor to get to the
root of the problems and I'llpay for it.
(48:07):
They nod again.
Then, knowing they willdisregard every word I've just
said, we part ways and go home.
Chapter 9 (48:21):
Chapter 9
Kelley Lynch (48:21):
Driving home, I think about how, what I've just
seen goes a long way towardsexplaining why so many patients,
apparently failed by Westernmedical doctors, bring their
mystery illnesses to NitiChanda's door and the doors of
kabirajis all over Bangladesh.
The problem isn't baans and evilkabiraj i.
(48:44):
It's a medical system where bothpatients and doctors fail one
another.
And in the fallout, it's thekabiraj who benefit in
Bangladesh.
You can set yourself up claimingto be just about anything.
How can patients tell the decentmedical doctors from the masses
of quacks and frauds?
(49:05):
And if by some chance they domanage to find their way to a
decent doctor and have enoughmoney to pay for a consultation,
how effective is he or shelikely to be?
Oversubscribed and underpaiddoctors already have so little
time for their patients, butthen having heard two lots of
talking to the doctor, I canalso understand that doctors
(49:28):
might feel it's a waste ofprecious time to listen to
patients, complain about theiraches and pains.
Without a common vocabulary oreven a common concept of
disease, miscommunication, or acomplete lack of communication
is inevitable.
Many patients don't know what totell the doctor or what to ask
(49:49):
and doctors, unlike kabirajs maynot have the time or the
patience to or explain.
And what do patients expect fromthese doctors?
The same thing they expect fromkabirajis- miracle cures that,
like the tabiz at Niti Chanda's,essentially fall from the sky.
(50:12):
Western medical treatment isexpensive and it can take a
significant investment of timeand money before you see
results.
With a kabiraj, on the otherhand, you might get results even
on the first visit.
It's the placebo effect, butit's also something more.
Here most people are on the samepage where baans, kabiraji,
(50:34):
spells, and spirits areconcerned.
These things are part of themental universe of most
Bangladeshis.
Germs, bacteria and viruses, notso much.
By the time I pull into mydriveway, it all makes perfect
sense.
I laugh at the idea of evilkabiraj.
(50:55):
I dismiss it entirely.
It's nothing more than a lot ofmumbo-jumbo rooted in
superstition and fed and wateredby some serious kinks in the
Bangladeshi application ofWestern medicine.
There's no invisible war goingon.
Sulata isn't being attacked by afamily member and Joseph, isn't
(51:16):
going to be the next target.
What was I thinking?
Chapter 10 (51:24):
Chapter 10.
Kelley Lynch (51:24):
A week later, Sulata is back at work.
She's her usual happy self.
She's cleaning the floor when Iask what the doctor's tests have
turned up.
She looks down at the mop in herhands.
Talk to my husband, she says,.Igo out to see Joseph who has his
head buried deep in thetroublesome engine of our Ford
(51:47):
Orion.
When I asked him about thetests, he doesn't answer.
You did go back to him to dosome more tests like we talked
about, didn't you?
I ask.
There's no need, he says withoutlooking up from the engine.
You see Sulata, she's feelingfine.
You went back to the kabiraj,didn't you?
I say.
(52:09):
He looks up at me.
I can see that he hadn't plannedto tell me, but since I've
asked, he nods.
We went on the weekend, he says,to get the new tabiz.
But Joseph don't you think youshould have followed up with the
doctor like we talked about.
Joseph sets his jaw.
I saw with my own eyes, whathappened to my wife.
(52:30):
I saw her pain.
I saw how the medical doctorsall said nothing was wrong.
I saw her crying every night andsaying that she wanted to die.
And I saw the kabiraj make herwell.
Come on Joseph, I say.
This whole thing is nothing morethan faith healing.
(52:50):
Joseph holds up his hand for meto stop.
Please, he says, you can believein Western medicine and medical
doctors, but for me, that isfaith healing.
Our kabiraj has great powers.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
He turns back to the engine andseeing that there's no point in
(53:11):
pushing, I opened the door to goback inside.
Madam.
He calls after me.
I pause at the top of the stepsand turn to look at him.
I think maybe there's somethingyou would like to know.
What's that?
I asked.
Somebody told me yesterday thatour family member had an
(53:32):
accident.
Really?
I ask what happened,?
His leg, it's broken.
I thought I'd left my bottomlesssuitcase of beliefs and
(54:04):
assumptions behind, but it seemslike brought it back with me.
When I came back to America,I've been back for 13 years now,
but I only recognized that Istill had it in my closet a few
months ago.
I think the reason I didn't seeit sooner is that this past year
was the first year in my adultlife that I have spent a whole
(54:24):
year in this country,uninterrupted.
And while things definitely feellike they've been heating up
around here over the last coupleof years, especially when you
look out at the country frominside the beltway, as I do
travel, has for me been a sortof release valve on that
pressure cooker.
Now stuck at home in DC.
(54:47):
I have found myself mired in ahost of preconceived ideas and
assumptions about how the worldworks or should work.
And this time the subject ofthose beliefs is my own country.
People here believe things andact in ways that seem crazy to
me.
They do things that I findinteresting and amazing, but
(55:11):
also shocking baffling,frustrating, and just plain
stupid.
But here's the thing I've beenhere before, and I know it will
be challenging anduncomfortable, but I trust that
with curiosity instead ofself-righteousness, as my guide,
(55:33):
I will be able to give differentpeople and different ways of
seeing the world, the benefit ofthe doubt.
I will learn to think not justoutside the box, but outside my
beliefs.
And I will remember to respectthe fact that there is always
more than one way to see theworld.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
Thank you for listening.
I have really enjoyed pullingout these couple of stories,
dusting them off and findingthat they actually still speak
to the world we live in today.
Sometimes even better than I didat the time I wrote them.
We're still working onrebranding.
(56:18):
A change we will announce herewhen we've got everything ready
to go.
So when you see that shortlittle episode in the feed,
don't ignore it in the meantime,just a reminder that you can
keep in touch with us by ourwebsite, which is still a new
normal podcast.com.
And we really appreciate yourlikes, subscribes and shares.
(56:42):
None of which will be lost whenwe change our name and all of
which you can do right from thecomfort of our website.
Take care, see you soon.
They say that travel broadens the mind.
And while this is undeniablytrue, what they don't say is
that asking your mind to reckonwith a bunch of things that
don't jive with yourunderstanding of reality is not
all unicorns and rainbows.
As I stepped off the plane inBangladesh way back in 1995, I
(00:23):
had no idea that packed inamongst the clothes and
toothpaste and shampoo andvitamins in my suitcase was a
grab bag of unconscious beliefsand assumptions about, well,
pretty much everything.
And unlike the toothpaste andshampoo and vitamins that I had
to carry into the country againand again, over the years, the
(00:46):
supply of these beliefs andassumptions was seemingly
endless.
Over the nine years we livedthere.
I was confronted again andagain, with what I thought I
knew about the world and how itworks.
People believed things and actedin ways that seemed crazy to me.
They did things I foundinteresting and amazing, but
(01:08):
also shocking baffling,frustrating, and just plain
stupid.
It took time, but eventually Icame to understand the obvious;
that there is more than one wayto make sense of the world.
And with curiosity, instead ofself-righteousness, as my guide,
(01:30):
I was finally able to givedifferent people and different
ways of seeing the world, thebenefit of the doubt.
I learned to think not justoutside the box, but outside my
beliefs.
(01:50):
Welcome.
I'm Kelly Lynch, and this is anew normal this time on the
podcast.
You guessed it.
Another story from Bangladesh,this one I didn't go looking
for.
It found me at home where itbecame a matter of daily life
for almost two years.
(02:12):
And in that time, it demandedthat I reckon with some of my
most basic assumptions about howthe world works.
What's more, it asks questions,real questions, the answers to
which could be a matter of lifeand death.
(02:34):
Just to note, before we getstarted, that all the names and
identifying details have beenchanged to respect people's
privacy.
Chapter 1 (02:53):
Chapter 1
Kelley Lynch (02:53):
Standing here at the kitchen counter.
Sulata shows me the weapons thatwere used in the most recent
attempt on her life.
A scrap of threadbare cloth, afingernail clipping along strand
of hair.
And then now empty metal bullet,a half inch long cylindrical
(03:15):
container that hangs from apiece of black thread.
She picks it the mangy mass witha straight pin and pulls out the
worst of it.
A small piece of string withnine knots, painstakingly tied a
few millimeters apart, balancingit on the end of the pin.
(03:36):
She holds it out for me to seeone knot equals one year.
They gave me nine years to liveI'm on the last one.
Sulata is o ur m aid, but moreprecisely she's our household
(03:59):
manager.
She's devoted and h ardworking.
She loves our kids like a motherand has only ever missed three
days of work in more than sixyears.
Until recently, a few weeks ago,she started complaining about a
sharp pain in her right side,just under her ribs.
(04:21):
A couple of days ago, she saidthat the pain had gotten so bad
that she was up all nightcrying.
So I sent her to see one of thebetter medical doctors in this
part of town.
Monday, he gave her somemedicine for the pain and
Tuesday an ultrasound turned upa small polyp in her
gallbladder, not likely to bethe source of her pain, He told
(04:43):
me over the phone and nothing torush into action over.
He suggested taking a wait andsee approach.
And in the meantime, taking someover the counter painkillers,
but the pain continued and gotso bad that late Friday night,
Sulata and her husband, Joseph,who happens to also be our
(05:03):
driver turned up on our doorstepasking for some time off.
The Western medicine, wasn'thaving any impact whatsoever.
They were going to see atraditional healer known as a
Kabiraj, a few hours outsideDhaka.
While they were gone, Josephcalled with regular updates.
(05:26):
They had found the source of theproblem.
Sulata was receiving treatmentand she was getting better.
And this morning, just six dayslater, here she is walking
through the kitchen door, fitand healthy as if nothing ever
happened.
I brought something to show you,she says.
Wait, here.
(05:46):
She disappears out the back doorand returns b earing the little
bundle we've just dissected.
But I'm confused.
I'm having a hard timeunderstanding what this little
bundle of dirty string and clothand hair and fingernails packed
inside.
A rusty silver amulet that she'scalling, a tabiz has to do with
curing Sulata.
(06:08):
We've been through it five timesalready.
Sulata is becoming impatient,but trying not to show it.
Somebody buried the tabiz in thedirt, she says, moving one hand
under the other so I can't missthe burying part.
And then with it, they shootbaans on me.
(06:30):
Baans?
I a sk what a re baans?
Joseph steps into the kitchen.
And Sulata looks to him tosupply the word she's looking
for.
Arrows, he says, baans are likearrows.
They give her name on the tabizwith the mantra, and then they
shoot her.
(06:51):
He makes a zooming sound andtraces the sharp trajectory of
an arrow at Sulata with hispinched fingers.
Now I get it.
I say, we're talking about somesort of Black magic voodoo
thing, Joseph and Sulata nod inunison relieved that we're
(07:12):
finally getting somewhere.
But if it was buried, I ask, whofound it and where did they find
it?
The kabiraj found it, she says.
It was buried in the ground,maybe near my house, maybe
somewhere else.
But then how did the kabirajfind it?
(07:34):
I ask.
Images of someone with a shovelknee deep in the dirt outside
Sulata's house come to mind asdo needles in haystacks.
I can't understand how anyonecould have possibly unearthed
such a small bullet cum arrow inany sizable patch of ground, but
I'm on the wrong track again.
(07:56):
She brought it, Sulata says.
But how, how did she bring it?
How did she know where to look?
I start to explain about theshovel and the mounds of dirt
and Sulata and Joseph laugh sohard they're almost crying.
When Sulata can speak again, shesays, no.
(08:16):
She brought it by mantra withholy words.
That's when I understand thatwhat w e're having is not just
another one of our all toocommon language mishaps, nor is
it a conversational malfunction.
It's a wholesale belief systembreakdown.
(08:38):
Sulata and Joseph look at me forsigns of comprehension.
She brought it by mantra.
Sulata says again.
She's exasperated with theeffort of trying to make me
understand, and we'e not for theintrinsic appeal of the subject.
I would be exasperated with theeffort of trying.
Joseph says something to her inBangla and Sulata tries another
(09:01):
tack.
She explains how the kabiraj putrice in Joseph's hands.
And then she put some flowers ontop of that and then more rice
and told him to rub the lotbetween his palms while she said
a mantra.
And then what happened?
I asked.
Joseph opened his hands and thiswas there.
(09:22):
She says.
But how could it just be there?
I say.
It can't have come from nowhere,but it seems that's where I'm
wrong.
Their world is not bound by thesame laws as the Western world I
grew up in.
It's a world where magic stillhappens.
Where powerful words canapparently manifest something
(09:45):
out of nothing.
Now I am more prone than most tosuspending disbelief in these
matters.
But once I understand what we'retalking about, I find myself
trying to work out the trick.
I ask if the kabiraj told themto close their eyes, or if she
touched Joseph's hands.
(10:06):
But Sulata and Joseph are not atall burdened with my Western
skepticism.
We saw her bring it with our owneyes, they say.
And for them that's enough.
When we finished picking throughthe contents of the tabiz,
(10:27):
Sulata takes it outside andstarts a little fire on the back
steps.
The kabiraj refused to tell themwho was shooting the baans, but
she did say that Sulata musttreat the weapon with the
greatest of care until it goesup in smoke.
The kabiraj who made the tabizcould use his own mantras to
(10:48):
call it back if he discoveredthat it was missing and then he
could do some serious damage.
These are the kinds of beliefsthose of us who tend to put our
faith in the twin gods ofscience and Western medicine
usually dismiss without so muchas a second thought.
But when Sulata goes out to burnthe tabiz and its contents, I
(11:09):
head straight for the bathroom,slather my hands with soap and
give them an extra good scrubjust in case some of its
powerful magic has rubbed off onme.
While I'm at it, I'll give thehairbrushes a good clean as
well.
Chapter 2 (11:31):
Chapter 2
Kelley Lynch (11:31):
This isn't my first brush with stories about
the powers of black magic yearsago.
I knew a woman, a matronlyno-nonsense American woman in
her late fifties, who wasdefinitely not the sort of
person to be given to wildimaginings or magical thinking.
She told me that several yearsbefore she and her husband had
(11:54):
been living in Brazil, when hesuddenly became seriously ill,
they went to see a Westerndoctor who ordered the works-
tests, X-rays scans, all ofwhich turned up nothing.
Her husband was bedridden andwasting away.
More Western doctors wereconsulted to no effect.
(12:15):
And yet it was clear that herhusband was dying.
Having exhausted every otheravenue, she was so desperate
that one day she found herselfin the house of a voodoo
practitioner.
At the first consultation, shewas sent away with a shopping
list that included a chicken,some eggs, and a few other bits
and pieces.
She was told to come back at theappointed hour on the following
(12:37):
day.
She returned followed orders tokill the chicken with her own
hands and made the offerings asdirected.
The voodoo practitioner thencast the bones, which revealed
that her husband was the targetof somebody's black magic.
The practitioner offered someritual words and gestures and
sent my friend home.
(12:58):
When she walked through thedoor, about an hour later, she
was shocked to find her husbandsitting up in bed.
Within a few weeks, he'd made acomplete recovery and had been
healthy ever since.
I asked my friend how shethought he'd been targeted.
She speculated that it couldhave been any of the usual
culprits, fingernail clippings,a piece of cloth, a piece of
(13:20):
hair from a hairbrush, but shehad no doubt that it was the
voodoo that cured him.
So when I see that Salata isback to her old self and that
the cure seems to have stuck, Ifind myself thinking that maybe
there's something to thiskabiraji business after all.
(13:42):
But then only a month later,Sulata is sick again.
This time with an entirelydifferent set of symptoms.
Her body is swollen.
Her skin getting noticeablydarker, her joints aching.
And she says, her limbs feellike they've been broken.
It's the baans, she says.
(14:03):
The arrows may be invisible, butthe pain is real.
She tells me that it's bearablewhen she's at our house, but it
gets worse when she goes homeand continues to build as the
evening goes on.
Her body hurts so much that shecan't sleep.
So she sits up all night cryingand praying that God will let
(14:24):
her die.
Relief comes at dawn when thecall to prayer breaks over the
rooftops.
As Joseph later informs me, thisis an important point when it
comes to matters of baans anddark kabiraji.
Whatever religion you follow andSulata and Joseph happened to be
Christian, this holy sound willdisperse all the evils.
(14:48):
In Sulata's case, this is thetime when the curtain of pain
lifts, and she's granted a fewmerciful hours of sleep.
After being sick for almost aweek, she and Joseph decided to
travel again to see the kabiraj.
A few days before they leave.
I asked Joseph, if he's takenSue lotta to see a medical
(15:10):
doctor again.
He says that for the past twoweeks, every evening after work,
they've been making the roundsof the clinics doing blood tests
and x-rays providing urine andstool samples- anything and
everything a host of doctorssuggest might help secure a
diagnosis.
Despite the fact that she'sclearly not well, none of the
(15:32):
tests has turned up anything andthe just-in-case medicines the
doctors have given her, haven'tworked either.
Joseph tells me that now he'smore convinced than ever it is
black magic they're dealingwith.
And that kabiraj is the only onewho can help.
Chapter 3 (15:57):
Chapter three.
Kelley Lynch (16:00):
Once again, for someone so sick, Sulata makes a
miraculous recovery.
After only one Saturday sessionwith the kabiraj, she's back at
work again on Monday and feelingfine.
This time when she comes in theback door, she motions for me to
follow her into the bathroomwhere she lowers the folds of
her sari at the waist to revealan extra large tabiz, one that
(16:23):
will protect her from new baans.
She whispers that I mustn't tellanyone about it or about the big
news.
The kabiraj has named the otherparty in the fight.
It's no wonder she refused totell them before, for this is
dangerous knowledge indeed.
It's one of their closerelatives.
(16:45):
And this time the kabiraj inmeditation over a bowl of water
has seen that instead of buryinga tabiz in the ground to work
its magic against her, theirrelative and the evil kabiraj
that is in his employ haveworked together to make a doll.
They've given it Sulata's nameand have been smashing it bit by
(17:06):
bit with a hammer.
That's what's been causing thepain in her joints and the
blackening, which of course isactually bruising of her skin.
But why would a relative want todo this to you?
I ask.
I've met this person and theydon't seem like the kind of
person who would want to hurtanyone much less a member of
(17:28):
their own family.
But as with most things in thiscountry, what I don't know and
don't understand could fillanother 43 volumes.
Sulata explains that this is notjust an isolated chapter, but
only the latest in a far longerand more sinister story than I
ever suspected.
(17:49):
She starts to whisper the story.
After 20 minutes, I lean back onthe sink.
After 45, I close the lid to thetoilet and have a seat.
This is going to take a while.
It seems the first target oftheir relatives banns was
another family member.
This man had held down good jobsin Dhaka for many years, but now
(18:13):
found it impossible to stickwith anything.
However hard he tried, he wouldalways end up doing something to
get himself fired, or he wouldquit for what he later said was
no reason at all.
As a result, he was forced tomove back to the village where
he eked out a living as afarmer.
Maybe he just doesn't want towork for somebody else.
(18:36):
I say to Sulata.
Maybe he likes being a farmer.
Maybe he likes being in thevillage and living with his
family and doing his own thing.
But Sulata is adamant.
It's the baans.
They shot him so he can't workin Dhaka.
Now he's getting poor.
He's selling his land.
He wants to work in Dhaka, butevery time he gets a job here,
(18:59):
he turns around and goes backhome for no reason.
I might argue about the cause,but not the fact.
The year before I had arranged acouple of job interviews for
him.
And while he did come to Dhaka,both times, he ended up packing
his bags the next morning andreturning home, without
(19:19):
explanation, before even meetingwith the prospective employer.
The next person to fall victimto the baans was another close
family member.
Having recently started arelatively lucrative job in
Dhaka.
He fell sick and like Sulatarepeated visits to various
(19:41):
doctors and rigorous teststurned up nothing.
He continued to lose weightuntil eventually he was so weak
that he had to quit his job.
And having spent all of hismoney on doctors, he too was
forced to retreat to thevillage, to work as a farmer.
For both men, the baansprevented them from going
(20:01):
anywhere near Dhaka, which wasthe only place they could earn
some real money.
All they had to do was enter thecity for the bands to take
effect.
And so now they're shooting me,Sulata says.
But I can't understand whyanyone especially a relative
would do that to any of you, Isay.
(20:22):
They don't want us going higherthan them, she says.
I'm buying land.
My children are going to school.
But when you do well, that helpsthe whole family, I say.
Some people think like that, shesays, but some people just care
about themselves.
They want to knock everybodyelse down so that they can be a
(20:43):
big person while we have to stayin the village, getting poor.
Chapter 4 (20:51):
Chapter 4.
Kelley Lynch (20:53):
This is war.
And as in any war, one mustemploy strategies for both
defense and offense by way ofdefense, Sulata and Joseph have
decided to move house.
When she's in pain, it's alwaysworse when she's at home.
The kabiraj told them thatduring her meditations, she's
(21:13):
seen that there are a lot ofother tabiz planted in and
around the house.
So many that even the sevenjinns or spirits that the
kabiraj enlisted to look aroundthe house, couldn't sweep them
all up.
But it's not all bad news.
The spirits were dispatchedagain last night.
This time they went to what willbe Sulata and Joseph's new
(21:35):
house.
They uncovered a few tabizlurking in the corners, but all
of them have now beenneutralized.
By way of offense, Sulata andJoseph have engaged a second
kabiraj to return fire.
The one they've been seeingrefuses to engage in dark
kabiraji, but this new one hasno qualms about shooting back-
(21:57):
even if it means shooting tokill.
But Sulata and Joseph don't wantto go that far.
They tell me they plan to startsmall first.
They'll have the new kabirajfire the baans that will cause
their family member to break aleg.
Chapter 5 (22:12):
Chapter 5.
Kelley Lynch (22:21):
It is several weeks before the next shot in
the invisible war is fired.
Predictably, it's on a Saturday,which is one of the two days
each week that kabirajs inBangladesh are open for
business.
The other being Tuesday.
Sulata tells me that on the wayto work, the stone in her
protective ring fell out orotherwise disappeared.
(22:43):
She shakes her head.
That means they're at thekabiraj again.
On Tuesday, her pain starts upagain.
This time she says, it feelslike someone has tied a rope
around her stomach.
She can't sit, can't eat.
And her feet feel as if they'reon ice.
Sulata gets on the phone andrelays a message to the kabiraj,
(23:04):
who promises to find out what'sgoing on.
If the evil kabiraj has madeanother tabiz to attack her, the
kabiraj will find it during hernighttime meditation.
The next morning I'm not at allsurprised when the kabiraj calls
to inform Sulata that anotherpowerful baans had indeed been
shot.
(23:25):
She has seen the tabiz.
She tells Sulata to come see heragain on Saturday so t hat she
can call it in.
This is all getting more than alittle bit predictable, but
there's also something new.
Today she has a message forJoseph.
In her meditations, she saw thathe's the next.
(23:46):
He must be very careful whenhe's driving less the baans
cause him to have a potentiallyfatal accident.
This is the moment wheneverything changes.
Suddenly this is no longer justanother strange chapter from my
life in Bangladesh.
It's personal to hear that ourdriver possibly with my children
(24:10):
in the car, maybe in mortaldanger.
I mean, what do you do withthat?
It's tempting to dismiss thiswhole thing as so much Hocus
Pocus or a bid for the kabirajto rope in more paying clients.
I mean, Sulata now spends almostevery weekend at the kabiraj,
(24:30):
hemorrhaging money in exchangefor protection from invisible
arrows, but I've seen and heardtoo much over these past few
months to just wave it all away.
My belief in the power ofkabiraj i or lack of belief
takes its place in a mentallineup alongside some of the
(24:51):
many traditional Bangladeshibeliefs.
I've dismissed as superstitiousnonsense.
Over the years, people have toldme that it's bad luck to travel
long distances on a Saturday,cautioned me against drinking
water after eating fruit,because it would definitely
upset my stomach and warned methat if I sneezed or stumbled on
my way out of the house, Ishould wait a while before going
(25:14):
out lest I get into an accident.
There were other beliefs thatseem more scientifically minded,
like the change of seasonsexplanation people gave any time
I got sick and injunctions tocover my head when I was out and
about at night to keep thecondensation off.
Over the eight years I've livedin Bangladesh, there have been
(25:35):
so many times that I haverighteously insisted on the
absolute truth of cue the airquotes what I, as a Western
educated person know to be true.
And as a result of that, knowingI have lectured and insisted on
doing things my way only to findmyself humbled and occasionally
(25:58):
even humiliated by the trainwreck that almost inevitably
followed.
It was so chronic in the earlyyears that I have now come to
hold what I think of as avariant of the"when in Rome"
adage except as it applies tobeliefs.
After all, these are the nativebeliefs of this land.
(26:20):
They developed in response towhat people here have seen,
experienced, felt and learnedover the course of thousands of
years.
And while that doesn'tnecessarily make them true, it
does mean they deserve a littlerespect.
Many people in this country,including some Western medical
doctors that I've met, believefervently in all of this.
(26:44):
What if yet, again, everybodyelse knows something I don't.
What if there's something tothis kabiraj i business after
all.
One thing is for sure, if any ofus is ever going to ride in the
car with Joseph again, I have tofind out.
So when Sulata and Josephinformed me that they're off to
(27:04):
see the kabiraj again, over theweekend, I tell them that I'll
be joining them and I'm hiringanother driver to take us just
in case.
Chapter 6 (27:19):
Chapter 6.
Kelley Lynch (27:21):
We arrive at kabiraj Niti Chanda's house at
7:00 AM on Saturday.
Joseph's brother, Michael meetsus there.
Nobody else is waiting as wetake up seats on the low stools
outside her corrugated ironhouse.
From around the corner, a bellstarts up and a voice croaks, a
song to the tune of a vaguelyfamiliar Christian hymn.
(27:45):
Niti is from a tribe known tooutsiders as the Gorrow and to
themselves as Mandi.
It wasn't so long ago thatgenerations of missionaries
finally succeeded in subsumingthe Mandi's traditional animist
beliefs under a Christianumbrella.
Today, the Mandi effectivelylive on tiny islands in a sea of
(28:07):
Bengali Muslims that issurrounded on three sides by
Hindu India.
The words to her song, a mix ofBangla, Mandi, and Hindi reflect
the mix of cultures.
When the song pauses for amoment, Niti's husband, a thin
man in a threadbare lungiwearing a white cotton tank top
(28:27):
inclines his head in thedirection of the music.
You can go in now, he says.
The song starts up again and wefollow the music around the edge
of the veranda to a smallwindowless room.
We slip out of our shoes andduck under the curtain of red
hibiscus that cascades over theroof.
Without a word, we arrangeourselves on several cane mats
(28:50):
behind Niti Chanda.
The only light in the room comesfrom three candles on a low mud
alter.
When my eyes adjust, I see thatthe kabiraj, dressed in a
heavily starched red sari, isseated facing the alter.
The candle light catches on afestival of tinsel decorations,
(29:13):
hanging overhead, and thegarlands of plastic flowers
draped over the arms of a woodencross below.
Beneath the cross are threestatues of the Virgin, Mary
smothered in flower stoles.
And though Nitti considersherself a Catholic, I note that
pride of place is given to anamorphous black stone that sits
at the foot of the cross in theexact center of the altar.
(29:37):
Resting on a bed of red hibiscusand spotted with dabs of red
powder, it is a representationof the Hindu goddess, Kali.
When she finishes the song Niti,delves into a stack of old
diaries.
She pulls out one embossed withthe legend 1994, leafs through
(29:57):
it and recites the words writtenthere and reading.
These, I later learned, are themantras that Kali gave her when
Niti first started to receivethe great goddesses powers nine
years ago.
When she finishes, Niti snapsthe diary closed, returns it to
the stack and turns to face us.
(30:24):
On the way here, we stopped tobuy rice candles and incense, as
Niti had instructed.
Niti asks us to pour the riceinto a kula or threshing tray on
the floor.
Meanwhile, the kabiraj riflesthrough a little orange box and
pulls out several k nottedstrings and a few broken arms
(30:45):
and legs that used to belong toa statue of Kali.
She arranges these on top of therice, covers each with a red
hibiscusc, dabs red powder onthe threshing tray and s tabs
two smoldering sticks of incenseinto the rice.
Using a small knife, she cuts aMandala into the mud floor, dabs
(31:06):
it too with red powder andcovers it with a cup of water
that she tops with another redhibiscus.
The preparations finished, Nititells us that when she was in
meditation, looking for thecause of Sulata's trouble, she
saw that this time, the badtabiz is wrapped in something
sharp.
To bring it into anybody's handslike she did the first time
(31:28):
Sulata came to see her mightcause a prick, unleashing evils
more severe than those she'sattempting to undo.
That's why today's tabiz must bebrought into something safe, the
cup of water.
With that Niti turns to face thealtar, ready to start the work
of bringing the tabiz.
(31:53):
Eyes closed, she runs one of theknotted strings through her
fingers, repeating a mantra overand over that I can't quite make
out.
When she's made one round of theknots, she tosses the string
over the cup of water, and it'sa hibiscus, picks up the small
knife and taps it repeatedly onthe black Kali stem.
Then she picks up the cup,thrust the knife through the
(32:13):
hibiscus and clinks it back andforth, back and forth faster and
faster in the cup as shecontinues to repeat the mantra.
Rain begins to pound the tinroof overhead the knife clinks
faster and faster.
The mantra is repeated fasterand faster until the kabiraj
runs out of breath.
The first attempt to retrievethe tabiz ends in failure.
(32:38):
Niti pours herself, a glass ofwater and turns to face us.
Breathless, she says, we'll tryanother way.
She points at Michael, do onefinger like this, she says
tapping her index finger rapidlyon the edge of the threshing
tray.
And on my signal, she saystopping the cup of water with
(32:59):
another red hibiscus, push thisflower into the cup and stir.
Niti takes a few deep breathsand turns again to face the
altar.
She taps the Kali stone with herknife then stands, takes a deep
breath and this time grasps thewooden handle of a small bell
(33:20):
with both hands.
Wringing it furiously, shebegins to intone the mantra.
She nods to Michael.
He taps his finger on the Kula.
She nods at him again and heplunges the knife and the
hibiscus into the cup and stirsclink, clink, clink, clink.
(33:41):
She rings the bell faster andfaster.
As she runs out of breath themantra picks up pace.
Michael stirs and taps fasterstill.
Tap, tap clink clink.
When suddenly Niti stops cold.
She turns and looks down atMichael.
Didn't, something come, shedemands.
(34:01):
Michael says he heard somethinghit the rice in the Kula, but
since he was expecting whateverit was to come into the water,
he didn't say anything.
Niti, isn't interested inexplanations.
She pounces on what looks like awinged insect about the size and
shape of a Cicada sitting on topof the rice.
You should have told me, shesays.
Niti drops the insect thing intothe cup of water.
(34:24):
Pours the water out over herhands and lunges at Sulata.
She rips aside Sulata's sari andkneads the tabiz water in her
hands onto the exposed flesh ofSulata's stomach blowing on it
in short manic puffs.
More kneading, more blowing asthe water from the tabiz is
massaged into Sulata's back.
When the water dries Sulatapulls her sari back into place
(34:47):
and we fall into a little circleon the c ane m at.
Niti rolls a cigarette.
Lights it draws deep andexhales.
She places a tiny oil lamp infront of us and looks into our
faces with anticipation.
She smiles as she unfastens thesafety pin that hangs from her
necklace and with its sharp endbegins to dissect the tabiz.
(35:15):
What looked at first glance likewings are actually fish fins.
Underneath them, the littlesilver bullet of the tabiz is
wrapped in the black flesh of adecomposing gecko.
Niti loosens the strings thatbind it and then unpacks the
tabiz itself, holding out eachbit over the tiny lamp and
(35:36):
giving it a name.
A piece of hair, bits of aninsect, some other flesh, she
can't make out, a sharp thorn,and another k notted string- all
stuffed into a tiny cylindricalamulet not more than two
centimeters long.
The gecko, Niti explains, wouldh ave been caught and then
(35:59):
killed slowly as the bad kabirajwound i t tighter and tighter
around the tabiz, and finally cinched it together with the
string that held the three fishfins in place.
Dangerous magic indeed, andSulata reasons, the reason that
she's been feeling squeezed,unable to eat, or even sit down
(36:21):
comfortably.
Joseph, Sulata, and Niti makeplans for a follow-up visit to
get a new tabiz for protection.
Then Sulata hands over the moneyfor today's session and everyone
is happy.
Except me.
I was so busy watching Niti forany slight of hand that I missed
the main event.
(36:42):
Michael tells us again andagain, how out of the corner of
his eye.
He saw this thing fly into therice, coming straight out of
thin air.
As they talk.
I look around for logicalexplanations.
Niti is wearing a sari, so shecan't have had anything up her
sleeve.
She also had both hands on thehandle of the bell, the entire
time of that I'm sure.
(37:03):
So there was no way she couldhave thrown it.
While it was all going on.
I became convinced that thetabiz must already be in the cup
of water that Michael wasstirring and he was just too
distracted to feel it.
But then it ended up coming intothe rice.
Could someone have thrown itthrough a hole in the ceiling?
No, the roof was entirelysealed.
(37:26):
Perhaps Ntti had set it up sothat it was poised to fall from
the low rafters.
But how could she have dislodgedit when she never touched
anything but the bell.
Had she perhaps hypnotized us insome way?
Definitely not.
I'd been watching her closely,like I've been watching her all
along and here's the thing, NitiC handa does not act like
(37:49):
someone who has something tohide.
She's welcomed me takingphotographs, recording
everything, watching, askingquestions.
Either she's so confident in hermastery of illusion that she
feels she has nothing to fear orshe really does have some sort
of power.
Chapter 7 (38:19):
Chapter 7
Kelley Lynch (38:24):
When we finally emerged from Niti's chambers
we're greeted by a disorderlyqueue of about 20 patients that
winds along her veranda andspills into the courtyard.
While in theory, such popularityshould tip the scales in her
favor, t's actually the singlefactor that pushes me towards
greater skepticism.
Because in talking with all ofthese people, I learned that
(38:47):
almost every one of thesepatients has a story that is
more or less a carbon copy ofSulata's.
One father has done the roundsof the medical doctors with his
11 year old daughter, but noneof them has found anything
wrong.
So he's come here because he'sheard that Niti's good with
these kinds of cases.
(39:09):
The old man who's next in linehas also seen many Western style
medical doctors.
They can't find anything wrongwith him, but he keeps losing
weight and doesn't have thestrength to work.
Behind him is a young man who'scome to consult the kabiraj on
behalf of his 63 year old motherwho is so sick, that she's in
the hospital.
(39:30):
She's not responding totreatment.
And the doctors have no ideawhat, if anything is wrong with
her.
And so it goes with one patientafter another.
By the time we've talked withmost of the assembled patients,
it's the young man's t urn tosee the kabiraj.
He says, we're welcomed to comein and watch the kabiraj work on
(39:50):
his mother's case.
Joseph and I follow the youngman into Niti's consultation
room and melt into a corner fromwhere we watch a repeat
performance of what Sulata andJoseph described happening on
their first visit.
Niti talks with t he young manthen says a mantra and closes
her eyes looking to see ifthere's an e vil tabiz lurking,
(40:13):
somewhere that might be causinghis mother's illness.
I'm not at all surprised whenshe says she's seen one to bring
it.
She repeats much of what we'vejust seen only like Joseph and
Sulata did the first time theywent there, she fills the man's
palms with rice and flowers andtells him to rub the lot
(40:34):
together between his hands.
After a few minutes, the manstops.
He says he feels something.
When he opens his hand, theresits a rusty tabiz.
Niti, once again, unhooks thesafety pin from her necklace and
unpacks it.
Inside are the usual culprits,fingernail clippings hair, a
(40:57):
piece of cloth, a thorn and apiece of knotted string.
Already, it seems far toofamiliar.
Before he leaves the young manhands over the equivalent of
almost$20, half of his monthlysalary for the treatment.
It's a good indication of howdesperate people are, but it
(41:19):
also makes me think that if Nitiis a magician, she better be a
damn good one.
This is a lucrative business.
One that has, after all turnedthis poor farmer's wife into a
renown and wealthy kabiraj.
Chapter 8 (41:34):
Chapter 8.
Kelley Lynch (41:42):
When we set off for Dhaka later that afternoon,
Sulata is feeling fine and themood in the car is buoyant, but
then almost an hour and a halfinto the journey, something goes
wrong.
Sulata cradles her head in herhands.
She says her head is throbbingand her stomach is twisted and
(42:03):
knots.
Joseph sitting in the front seatnext to the substitute driver,
throws his head back against theheadrest and grabs his hair with
his hands.
What just happened?
I ask.
We've just crossed into Dhaka.
Joseph says.
The bad kabiraj is shooting heragain.
His eyes brim with tears.
(42:25):
This world, or this country cango to war, but I am all the time
now having my own personal warall the time they're shooting
baans.
It's always worse on Tuesdaysand Saturdays, Sulata says, her
eyes have closed.
And without another tabiz toprotect me, look how fast they
(42:47):
got me.
Now I'm asking myself how I canstay here on this earth?Joseph
wails, the tears staining hisface, a darker shade of brown.
Sulata's sick.
Again, we spend all of our moneytreating her, but she keeps
getting sick.
How can I pay the rent?
(43:09):
How can I support our fourchildren?
Soon I will have to sell my landto pay for treatment and still
they're shooting baans at hermore and more God, can you see
me?
He pleads with the roof of thecar.
Can you see my trouble?
(43:29):
And that's when I decide thatthis whole bloody kabiraj i
business, if not a big sham, isa complete waste of time and
money.
This is ridiculous, I say.
We have to take Sulata back tothe Western medical doctor
tomorrow, but the baans Josephsays.
If you keep on like this, you'regoing to spend all your money
(43:52):
shooting and protectingyourselves from stupid invisible
arrows, I lecture.
It's a war with no end.
Look at all those people.
Look at yourselves.
Everybody with the same story.
Everybody going back and forthto the kabiraj weekend and week
out.
You may as well just hand overall your money to her right now.
(44:15):
Look, I'll go with you to thedoctor.
I'll make sure we get to thebottom of this.
At least if he finds somethingmedically wrong, there's a good
chance you can cure it and bedone with it.
Joseph is desperate enough thathe hears me and his faith in
kabiraji waivers long enough forhim to agree.
Tomorrow we'll take Sulata tosee the doctor again.
Chapter 9 (44:37):
Chapter 9
Kelley Lynch (44:50):
The next evening, there's a Stony silence in the
car on the way to the doctor'soffice.
The more I've thought about it,the more fed up I've become with
their willingness to attributeevery ache and pain Sulata has
to invisible arrows.
And Joseph has had enough timeto think about all of this to
decide that he's fed up with myinsistence on attributing
illnesses solely to otherinvisible evils called viruses,
germs, and bacteria.
Sitting in the doctor's busywaiting room, my white skin
ensures that we're called intohis orderly chamber without much
of a wait.
In his officious manner, thedoctor rushes us through the
briefest of histories ofSulata's illness.
(45:31):
Then turns his focus on what'sgoing on now.
When I try to flesh out thepicture, explaining how her
illness has migrated and mutatedover the last number of months
from the pain in her side, forwhich he initially saw her to
pain in her joints anddiscoloration of her skin, and
now a pain in her stomach.
To explain how it grows worse atnight and how Sulata and Joseph
(45:54):
had seen numerous doctors whodid numerous tests.
The doctor cuts me off anddemands that Sulata tell him
what's wrong, which is of courseas it should be.
But the normally stoic Sulata,whines and moans such that even
I don't want to hear it.
She says there's a pain in herback.
There's a pain in her stomach,but there is no mention of the
(46:17):
host of symptoms we've beendealing with for months.
And of course, none of usmentioned the kabiraj.
The doctor cuts her off anddemands to see the papers for
all the lab tests she didseveral months earlier, before
they went to see the kabirajthat second time.Joseph looks
puzzled.
Papers?
The doctor ushers us out thedoor and tells us to come back
(46:39):
when we've got the papers.
Joseph tells Sulata and I towait while he goes home to find
them.
More than an hour later, hereturns with a disheveled stack
of receipts, hastily, scribbled,prescriptions, and
unintelligible lab results.
(47:01):
Minutes later, we're sitting infront of the doctor.
Again, he flips through thestack pausing now, and then to
examine a smudge carbon copy ofone lab result or another.
As he rifles through them, heasks, have you taken all of
these medicines?
Sulata nods.
The doctor tosses the stack atus across the desk.
(47:22):
Well, that's a shame becausethey've done all the wrong
tests.
The results you have here meannothing.
We'll start over with a stooltest and a blood test.
We'll see what, if anything theyshow and go from there.
On the way out, I lecture Sulataand Joseph about the importance
(47:44):
of building up a medical historyand keeping their files in good
order.
Since doctors here don't keepanyone's records for them.
They nod.
I tell them they should workwith one decent doctor instead
of trailing around to everycheap clinic in town.
They nod.
I tell them they must follow upwith this doctor to get to the
root of the problems and I'llpay for it.
(48:07):
They nod again.
Then, knowing they willdisregard every word I've just
said, we part ways and go home.
Chapter 9 (48:21):
Chapter 9
Kelley Lynch (48:21):
Driving home, I think about how, what I've just
seen goes a long way towardsexplaining why so many patients,
apparently failed by Westernmedical doctors, bring their
mystery illnesses to NitiChanda's door and the doors of
kabirajis all over Bangladesh.
The problem isn't baans and evilkabiraj i.
(48:44):
It's a medical system where bothpatients and doctors fail one
another.
And in the fallout, it's thekabiraj who benefit in
Bangladesh.
You can set yourself up claimingto be just about anything.
How can patients tell the decentmedical doctors from the masses
of quacks and frauds?
(49:05):
And if by some chance they domanage to find their way to a
decent doctor and have enoughmoney to pay for a consultation,
how effective is he or shelikely to be?
Oversubscribed and underpaiddoctors already have so little
time for their patients, butthen having heard two lots of
talking to the doctor, I canalso understand that doctors
(49:28):
might feel it's a waste ofprecious time to listen to
patients, complain about theiraches and pains.
Without a common vocabulary oreven a common concept of
disease, miscommunication, or acomplete lack of communication
is inevitable.
Many patients don't know what totell the doctor or what to ask
(49:49):
and doctors, unlike kabirajs maynot have the time or the
patience to or explain.
And what do patients expect fromthese doctors?
The same thing they expect fromkabirajis- miracle cures that,
like the tabiz at Niti Chanda's,essentially fall from the sky.
(50:12):
Western medical treatment isexpensive and it can take a
significant investment of timeand money before you see
results.
With a kabiraj, on the otherhand, you might get results even
on the first visit.
It's the placebo effect, butit's also something more.
Here most people are on the samepage where baans, kabiraji,
(50:34):
spells, and spirits areconcerned.
These things are part of themental universe of most
Bangladeshis.
Germs, bacteria and viruses, notso much.
By the time I pull into mydriveway, it all makes perfect
sense.
I laugh at the idea of evilkabiraj.
(50:55):
I dismiss it entirely.
It's nothing more than a lot ofmumbo-jumbo rooted in
superstition and fed and wateredby some serious kinks in the
Bangladeshi application ofWestern medicine.
There's no invisible war goingon.
Sulata isn't being attacked by afamily member and Joseph, isn't
(51:16):
going to be the next target.
What was I thinking?
Chapter 10 (51:24):
Chapter 10.
Kelley Lynch (51:24):
A week later, Sulata is back at work.
She's her usual happy self.
She's cleaning the floor when Iask what the doctor's tests have
turned up.
She looks down at the mop in herhands.
Talk to my husband, she says,.Igo out to see Joseph who has his
head buried deep in thetroublesome engine of our Ford
(51:47):
Orion.
When I asked him about thetests, he doesn't answer.
You did go back to him to dosome more tests like we talked
about, didn't you?
I ask.
There's no need, he says withoutlooking up from the engine.
You see Sulata, she's feelingfine.
You went back to the kabiraj,didn't you?
I say.
(52:09):
He looks up at me.
I can see that he hadn't plannedto tell me, but since I've
asked, he nods.
We went on the weekend, he says,to get the new tabiz.
But Joseph don't you think youshould have followed up with the
doctor like we talked about.
Joseph sets his jaw.
I saw with my own eyes, whathappened to my wife.
(52:30):
I saw her pain.
I saw how the medical doctorsall said nothing was wrong.
I saw her crying every night andsaying that she wanted to die.
And I saw the kabiraj make herwell.
Come on Joseph, I say.
This whole thing is nothing morethan faith healing.
(52:50):
Joseph holds up his hand for meto stop.
Please, he says, you can believein Western medicine and medical
doctors, but for me, that isfaith healing.
Our kabiraj has great powers.
I've seen it with my own eyes.
He turns back to the engine andseeing that there's no point in
(53:11):
pushing, I opened the door to goback inside.
Madam.
He calls after me.
I pause at the top of the stepsand turn to look at him.
I think maybe there's somethingyou would like to know.
What's that?
I asked.
Somebody told me yesterday thatour family member had an
(53:32):
accident.
Really?
I ask what happened,?
His leg, it's broken.
I thought I'd left my bottomlesssuitcase of beliefs and
(54:04):
assumptions behind, but it seemslike brought it back with me.
When I came back to America,I've been back for 13 years now,
but I only recognized that Istill had it in my closet a few
months ago.
I think the reason I didn't seeit sooner is that this past year
was the first year in my adultlife that I have spent a whole
(54:24):
year in this country,uninterrupted.
And while things definitely feellike they've been heating up
around here over the last coupleof years, especially when you
look out at the country frominside the beltway, as I do
travel, has for me been a sortof release valve on that
pressure cooker.
Now stuck at home in DC.
(54:47):
I have found myself mired in ahost of preconceived ideas and
assumptions about how the worldworks or should work.
And this time the subject ofthose beliefs is my own country.
People here believe things andact in ways that seem crazy to
me.
They do things that I findinteresting and amazing, but
(55:11):
also shocking baffling,frustrating, and just plain
stupid.
But here's the thing I've beenhere before, and I know it will
be challenging anduncomfortable, but I trust that
with curiosity instead ofself-righteousness, as my guide,
(55:33):
I will be able to give differentpeople and different ways of
seeing the world, the benefit ofthe doubt.
I will learn to think not justoutside the box, but outside my
beliefs.
And I will remember to respectthe fact that there is always
more than one way to see theworld.
Speaker 1 (55:58):
Thank you for listening.
I have really enjoyed pullingout these couple of stories,
dusting them off and findingthat they actually still speak
to the world we live in today.
Sometimes even better than I didat the time I wrote them.
We're still working onrebranding.
(56:18):
A change we will announce herewhen we've got everything ready
to go.
So when you see that shortlittle episode in the feed,
don't ignore it in the meantime,just a reminder that you can
keep in touch with us by ourwebsite, which is still a new
normal podcast.com.
And we really appreciate yourlikes, subscribes and shares.
(56:42):
None of which will be lost whenwe change our name and all of
which you can do right from thecomfort of our website.
Take care, see you soon.
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