A Shaman Feared Than To Predict Me Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

My student guided me to a shaman
said to be having occult powers.
With his supernatural powers,
he would call the good spirits
to drive out the evil ones from his customers.
I went there to know from that superman,
the whereabouts of my brother’s killer.
A huge crowd gathered before his hut
on the bank of a river, on auspicious days..
Till midnight, he would be a normal man.
After midnight, with a chain of bells,
tied around his hip, he prayed to the deities
of the Hills of Ghosts, danced and shouted,
bit the throats of two or more cocks
and drank the blood oozing out with roars
and called a man by his original name
and told him to find his stolen cows somewhere.
Another lady trembled and danced with rage
and fell on his lap and stopped her cries.
He smeared sacred ash on her forehead
and predicted her husband would be coming back.
Then at last the shaman cried cloud:
“ You young boys! You have come to know
when you will get jobs? Next month you get orders”,
I nodded my head and said: ” I am already in job”.
“That is what I said you fool! ”, he blared and danced.
“ Yes, Yes …You said the same”, I back tracked and left.