lives and problems 133
Hanifa: “Are you sleeping well?” Th ey will ask me if I have enough sleep now.
Th en they will ask me if I can hear some voices talking to me. Only when I take
medicine I will sleep. Without that I can’t sleep, even in the daytime. Th ey told
me to continue the medicine.Hanifa reveals his unfamiliarity with counseling and psychotherapy and
recalls only diagnostic questions doctors had asked him. He concludes his
response with a return to the topic of medication.
We resumed discussing Hanifa’s troubles, and his wife told us that he
was under tension in the Gulf partly because of fi nancial concerns. Like
many migrant workers from India, he had to borrow a large sum of money
to obtain a plane ticket, visa and work permit at a time when he and his
family were not economically secure. Now they are doing better fi nan-
cially, according to Hanifa’s wife, who then off ered further details about his
troubles:
Since he came back, if we ask him anything, he will get veprālam [confusion,
worry] and will run off. He will run off without telling anyone. When we look
for him, he won’t be in the house. He began to spend all of our money. So
then for some time we thought it might be kaivisham [a mysterious poison] or
śeyittān [a spirit]. So we were looking into that.Kavitha: Did you do any pūja [worship, ritual] for that?Hanifa’s Wife: We didn’t do a lot of that. His sister is educated so they consulted
a doctor. Th ere was no relief with that. Only when we came here to this mosque
was there any change [māttam].Again, Hanifa’s wife emphasized that Hanifa’s problem improved only at
Beemapalli mosque. She then told us that they had tried pūjas (worships and
rituals that can have a Hindu connotation) to counter kshudram (sorcery) in
case Hanifa’s troubles are caused by kaivisham or a śeyittān, as his wife sus-
pected. Th ese eff orts, however, did not improve Hanifa’s condition.
Hanifa’s wife told us earlier that they had to remain in Beemapalli only
fi ve more months for Hanifa to get relief. Toward the end of the interview,
when we asked her to explain how she knew this, she recalled that Umma [the
woman who is entombed at Beemapalli] revealed this in a dream:
We will dream about it, and in the dream we will be given medicines, an “oper-
ation” and all. If we dream that we are going home, we can go home. We dreamt
of being here until the fl ag hoisting [the annual festival at the mosque]. After
that we can go.