elders the very next day. A priest was commissioned to come to our home and help us mere mortals. I almost blurted out, “He’s my father. Not the Devil or a demon,” when I saw Father Michael gripping his crucifix. Who would have thought that Catholics were prone to following shamanic rituals? Here I was thinking that it was only ‘my kind’ (Father Michael’s words, not mine) that made sacrificial offerings of slaughtered goats to Hindu gods and goddesses to appease them. Three nights in a row, Father Michael came to our house, garlic in one hand and the bible in the other. With Johnny on my lap and my husband seated on the sofa next to me, we were given lessons from the Bible about our sins by a celibate priest who hadn’t let go of his Hindu roots. On the fourth, fifth and six nights, we slaughtered kampung chickens, mixed their blood with holy water and sprinkled it all around our house. “So that the spirits don’t take another life,” he explained. The dead chickens, which we had to buy daily from the wet market so they were ‘fresh’, were taken away by Father Michael. I never dared to ask what he did with them. Maybe, the nuns in a nearby convent made chicken stew. Maybe, the school-going children in the Church-sponsored orphanage had fried chicken for dinner. Who knows… On the seventh night, a time to rest, we hosted a dinner for Father Michael, a few parishioners and my mother-in-law. “It’s all sorted,” he declared after he arranged his billowing robes and we bent down to kiss his ring. “Everything will be fine from now on,” he insisted, comforting my mother-in-law as she lay a hand on her chest and sighed. Three days later, I vowed never to confess to my husband that all his family’s efforts had been futile. You see, within twelve hours of Father Michael’s failed sort-of exorcism, I sat with coffee mug in hand and listened as my son and father resumed their daily conversations. “Mummy,” my son appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, a week later. “Come, come,” he said to me. I put the mug down, took his outstretched hand and let him lead me to the playroom. He rushed to sit down on the straw mat and looked up at his playmate who was invisible to me. “You tell her,” my son said to him. “Tell me what?” “Tata said he’s shame-shame to tell you.”
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