Strange but True

Malaysia Today
29 January 2006


Loony Malaysia

Strange but True

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I have never really believed in ‘black magic’, though a good
percentage of Malaysians probably do; and this would apply to
Malaysians of all races and minority ethnicities, not just Malays. It
is in fact quite common to see lads and lassies with some sort of
charm around their wrist or neck meant to ward off evil spirits.

Malaysians are by nature a superstitious lot. Chinese who do not
believe in feng shui are the exception. Though feng shui could hardly
be regarded as magic; black or otherwise; it would certainly border
on superstition, in the belief that certain ‘factors’ can decide or
affect one’s fate or destiny.

Muslims, on the other hand, are supposed to believe that one’s fate
or destiny (takdir) has been predetermined (note the word
‘supposed’). It has already been decided when, how and where you will
be born and when, how and where you will die. Your death has been
predetermined to the micro-second and you are powerless to delay
this, whatever you may choose to do. If you are fated to die in a
plane crash at the height of your career, then that will be how you
go. You cannot change this.

You also cannot choose to be born the son of a king or determine
whether you, in turn, will succeed the throne and become king as
well. If you have been fated to be born from a farmer, then you will
be a farmer’s son. That, the Malays would argue, has been ‘written’.
And the Malays also believe whoever you marry later in life is also
your jodoh, your marital partner divinely chosen for you. (And they
put the blame squarely on ‘jodoh’ when they marry more than one wife,
implying of course ‘fate’ and not they are to blame for this).

A sultan may not necessarily become king, as history has proven in
the case of Sultan Ali of Terengganu who was removed from the throne
and never became Agong (king) -- his successor did instead. His
eldest son too never became the Sultan of Terengganu and instead had
to earn his living as a lorry driver with Hubungan Raya Terengganu,
the transport company owned by the Terengganu State Economic
Development Corporation (SEDC). Sultan Ali’s younger son worked as my
salesman selling tractors at RM250 per month back in the 1970s when
RM250 was hardly enough to get by even in those days. But I had just
started out in business and that was all I could afford to pay him
though I realised it was rather low. Nevertheless, he did earn a
commission for every tractor he sold, which was not that often.

While one believes in fate, and good Muslims are supposed to accept
fate, this does not mean we do not try to change our fate for the
better. If a king’s son can miss becoming king, so does a farmer’s
son not necessarily become a farmer. How many prime ministers of this
country were from the ruling class? Maybe the First Prime Minister,
Tunku Abdul Rahman, was. Tun Razak and Hussein Onn too could be
regarded as ‘orang istana’ (palace people). But Dr Mahathir is the
son of an immigrant English school teacher from India who made the
fortunate move of marrying a Malay woman -- if not, the most Dr
Mahathir could have become is the President of MIC. And the present
PM, Pak Lah, is certainly not the son of the ruling elite either,
just like Mahathir.

This tells us that while your birth and death are beyond your
control, what happens to you in between can be influenced somewhat.
But you may not necessarily have the power to change things all by
yourself. So some external help may be needed. And this is where feng
shui or black magic would come in handy.

And you had better not pooh-pooh this whole thing as mere
superstition or outdated beliefs. You will be surprised to know that
many politicians -- party presidents and prime ministers included --
have a string of bomohs on their payroll to help defeat their enemies
and ensure that their enemies are not able to cast a spell on them to
bring them down. Would you be surprised if I told you that dates of
general elections and by-elections are decided only after the
‘consultants’ advise are sought? Even the announcement of the
election must be properly timed according to the time and date
determined by the bomohs. Some may have noticed that a certain prime
minister always used his ‘lucky’ blazer every election. He would
never face an election without this blazer and the blazer was for use
only during the election.

Anyway, while on the subject of bomohs, about 40 years ago, I was
then about 15 or so, I experienced my first flirtation with a bomoh
who had his place of business deep in the kampong along the Old
Kelang Road facing Section 1 in Petaling Jaya. Actually it was our
family chauffer and his friend who wanted to go see him. I just
tagged along for the heck of it.

We reached the place about 10.00pm, parked our car beside the road,
and trekked through the thick undergrowth to the doorstep of the
ramshackle abode of the bomoh. My chauffer’s friend gave a loud salam
and a voice inside the shack answered the salam. In a flash the
wooden door opened and we kicked off our shoes and entered the house.

The three of us sat cross-legged in front of the bomoh and one of the
chaps, can’t remember which, spelt out our hajat (objective or
motive). The bomoh looked at our hands and asked my chauffer’s friend
to remove his ring. He slipped off his ring and handed it to the
bomoh who then lit a candle in a white bowl, tied the ring with a
piece of sewing thread, and held the ring by the thread over the candle.

The bomoh shook his head and handed the ring back. He then asked for
my chauffer’s ring and repeated the ritual. But it appeared like that
ring too was not good enough and he handed it back. He then asked for
my ring. My ring? My ring was just a plain, cheap ring of no
significant value, not like the ‘magic’ rings of my two senior comrades.

Never mind, said the bomoh, it is not the value of the ring that
counts but the roh (spirit) of the stone. Spirit? Yes, the spirit
comes from the wearer. If the wearer is serasi (compatible) with the
stone, then it would hidup (come alive).

It was with great difficulty I suppressed my laughter as I handed the
bomoh my ring. I did not want to offend him lest he put a charm on
me. His daughter sitting in the corner of the house and constantly
smiling at me was charming enough as it is.

To my surprise, my ring started gyrating when the bomoh held it over
the candle. This must be a trick or there could be a scientific
explanation to the whole thing. It could have something to do with
the hot air from the candle rising and creating air turbulence or
something like that.

The bomoh probably sensed my scepticism. He then asked for my hand. I
held out my hand and he asked me to hold the end of the sewing thread
with my finger and thumb. He then placed his finger on my wrist. I
almost dropped the ring when it started gyrating again. To prove that
he was not making the ring move and that it was doing so entirely on
its own, he removed his finger from my wrist and the ring still
continued gyrating.

I was dumbfounded.

The bomoh then removed the candle from the white bowl and placed the
ring in the bowl. He then held the candle over the ring to allow the
wax to drip onto it. Of course, there was some chanting going on as
well. When the wax had fully covered the ring, he handed the bowl to
us and asked us to take turns to look at it and tell him what we saw.

“What three numbers do you see?” he asked us. Each of us saw
different numbers of course, so we wrote down all the numbers that we
thought we saw. There were probably about ten numbers in all that the
three of us saw.

The next day, we drove all over Kuala Lumpur buying up three-digit
lottery tickets from the Turf Club outlets. These were for the
Saturday Turf Club horse racing lottery draw. We had to drive as far
as Kelang and Kajang to buy the lottery tickets because some of the
numbers had been sold out in Kuala Lumpur.

Early Sunday morning, I rushed out to buy the Straits Times to scan
through the Turf Club lottery page. Sheesh! None of our numbers came
up. I knew this was all a scam. We wasted RM20 on the bomoh and at
least RM100 on the lottery tickets (and this was in the mid-1960s
when RM10 was a king’s ransom).

I woke up Monday morning to the shouts of my extremely excited
chauffer. “Look at the newspaper!” He showed me the Sunday draw for
the Turf Club three-digit lottery. One of the numbers we had bought
for the Saturday draw had hit the first prize.

“Did you buy the Sunday draw?” he asked me. I had not, and neither
had he or his friend. We had bought up all the lottery tickets we
could find for the Saturday draw but forgot that the Turf Club also
had a Sunday draw.

We missed becoming rich through an oversight; or were we fated not to
become rich through winning the lottery?

That was the first and last I ever bought Turf Club lottery tickets
and I never visited a bomoh to ask for lottery numbers ever again.
And until today I still pass this whole thing off as sheer
coincidence. Or was it?

Oh, and one more thing, after we had written down our numbers, the
bomoh handed me back my ring and I slipped it onto my finger after
wiping off the wax. I was still rubbing the ring to remove the
remnants of the wax the entire journey home. When I reached my home,
I found that the stone had somehow dropped off and I was left with an
empty casing. We searched inside the car and outside the house but
could not find the stone. It was gone for good. Hmm, did the stone
drop off or......eerie isn’t it?