lives and problems 127
Biju: Like you were tied up?Lakshmi: Like being chained at the legs, unable to walk.Biju: Do you feel like someone is coming to “attack” you? Like someone is
“attacking” you from behind?(Brief conversation between Murphy and Biju.)Lakshmi: When we do that, we will feel each thing inside us, inside our mind
like each thing working on us. Th at is, whether we do some prayer or when
we come to do something else, without obstacles, we... When some obstacle
comes, we make some promise [to Devi]: that after getting beyond that obstacle,
we will come back. Sometimes, we will not be able to move our tongue. Finally,
we will be unable to talk. Th en when we do off erings, we will be free from that.Biju: Do you have consciousness [bōdham] during possession [tullāl]?
Consciousness [bōdham]?Lakshmi: No.Biju: Do you have [literally, “see”] consciousness inside [ullil bōdham kānumō]?Lakshmi: Inside the inside, there will be consciousness [ullinte ullil bōdham
kānum]. Th e reason is... but there is no outside. Th ere is a feeling that some-
thing is inside.Biju: No consciousness [bōdham] on the outside, right?Lakshmi: No consciousness [bōdhamilla].In this exchange, Lakshmi is saying that during possession, her normal state
of consciousness is gone (“there is no outside”), but at some, deep or subtle level
(“inside the inside”) she is aware of what is happening. Th is discussion about
possession turns on the idiom bōdham “consciousness,” one of several principle
modes of experience in the local phenomenology—the culturally and histor-
ically shaped way of dividing up and orienting experience—Biju and Lakshmi
are engaging with. In Chapter 4 we will see that people in Kerala experience
problems of distress in terms of a variety of states that form a continuum from
the tangible body to the intangible ātman or true self. Bōdham lies toward
the less tangible—and more highly valued—end of this continuum. Lakshmi’s
affl iction seems to have aff ected her whole person. Earlier, she described how
she experienced problems as discomforts in the body, and here she expresses