DEVI'S MIRROR

(A blonde, seen from the back in jeans and black sweater in American room with masks and drawings of nude women on the wall, sits at a PC, next to a printer, humidifier, heater, phone etc; behind her the mirror reflects her, in front of her the window shows gray urban setting. She turns around, sees her face in the mirror, leans and kisses it, unzips her pants, pulls up her sweater, begins to masturbate, a thin moan. She's Devi.)

(A madwoman, seen from far above, roams through a surreal rock-and-desert landscape and a cluster of elaborately painted decaying cenotauphs. Close in: Indian women with loose soiled hair wail, scream, scattered around lying on rock, speak in male or shrill voices, curse, roll in the ground, whip themselves, stand still in strange poses or on their heads, lift statues of Devi, pray, cook, gossip, sing.)
Devi in v.o. (voice-over):
There is something not quite right in my method: people love me too easily. I walk in a room and it darkens, it becomes more intimate, it excludes the world. And people emerge dissatisfied with the rest of humanity.

(Devi in red transparent working salvar is imperturbable, calm, childlike, with laughing eyes, constantly mobbed, holds herself straight like a flamenco dancer, her path is lined by women swaying, whispering, squatting with suppliant hands and open legs; she walks by and playfully, mindlessly caresses the lips or eyes etc of women, as one would the strings of a guitar: it is her "healing touch". All characters except Devidasi, Devi and Ravi, wear the same clothes under any weather conditions, or add a sweater over; Devi's are transparent always. When anyone sees her, they lift and join their hands in prayer before speaking.)
vo: I love walking into this playpen. The spectacle turns me on. Life overflows. What else is life good for if not, first and foremost, as a pleasing spectacle?

(Outside Devi's center is a huge crowd, a line of patients waiting to be let through the gate, relatives awaiting news of their kin, husbands claiming their wives, the curious multitudes waiting to witness a miracle or see Devi come out and touch her, exchanging anecdotes about her cures; all are excited and participate in the happenings; they want to know every patient's lifestory and relatives eagerly share them, for the attention. Ash-smeared ochre-robbed saddhus with matted dreadlocks and religious marks on their foreheads pull trucks with their dicks, are buried in sand, contorted inside bottles, eat fire, whip themselves, beg; Jain monks, deformed boys, Siamese twins, cripples, lepers beg; petty-thieves, tourists, journalists snoop around; volunteers speak on birth control, child care, sanitation, dowry evils, immunisation; in countless shacks merchants shout, haggle, sell fried snacks, sweet drinks, boiled eggs, vegetables, souvenirs, incense, wreaths, puppets, idols, pictures of gods, bangles, rosaries, puja utensils, vermillion, with flies on the over-ripe fruit and sweets, and dust; street-barbers, earcleaners, street-dishwashers etc. The air is thick with incense and fried snacks. Families of peacocks peck through the garbage. Extremely overcrowded taxis arrive with people hanging on for dear life from all sides; girls carry pots of water etc on their heads and wear a field version of sari, tied into their buttocks. The Rajasthan desert lies beyond in sun-drugged silence. Nearby stands the open kitchen where people roll out rotis for the poor and a makeshift puppet-colony where hundreds of idols and puppets of Devi duplicating her features, hair, jewelry and clothes and with paste-on eyes, some life-size, are being produced.)
Devidasi (fights a crowd, childish, a very pretty, coquetish girl with huge silver eyes): No, not you! I don't want pretty women in. You're fair. Namaskar.
Rama (completely bald, chubby, big, hairy, in moustaches, round sunglasses and safari-like uniform): She still uses a blind Devidasi as a bouncer! Shiva lingam! Is she in yet?
Devidasi: Acha. You want a drink? We have water, chai, stimulants, tonics, pacifiers. (He sees Devi)
Rama (complains): I've been with your crazies for an hour.
Devi: I was out all night... I thought a man would enjoy the company of so many women running around loose and ecstatic.
Rama: Even if you're a shaman, you should follow regular working hours like any business; I'll get on your ass about it?if you are not nice. I can take away your license.
Devi: You on my ass? I'm unlicensed, that's why I pretend to squeal to you. You could get your info first hand from the women; they aren't lepers. Then you wouldn't need me.
Rama (smiles): Wouldn't I though?

(On a vista turbaned townsmen lazily lean on their sides on string cots out of a dhaba-eatery, make wide gestures with their arms and all their fingers spread apart, pull up their kurtas and scratch their bellies, very feminine in body language despite their moustaches and beards; some sleep)

Local1: My neighbour got leprosy and was shunned by all. Devi drove her to the hospital and when she was cured, arranged her marriage to a former leper and gave him goats. If you have an income, your infirmities are forgotten. Now she sweeps Devi's gates. (Points at old leper squatting by the gate at the same spot always, sweeping the sand around)
Local2: Better stay away from lepers; they have bad kharma.
Local3: It's enough to touch them once to get sick yourself.
Local4: Devi is like the maharaja was; she'll keep anyone employed and on the payroll. She could run for office.
Local2: I had a huge moustache I culled for 30 years. I was famous for it. Rama decreed such a moustache didn't behoove a lowly banglemaker; I begged Devi to help me, but she said 'don't be a peacock'; so I shaved it off. Or he would raid the banglemakers colony.
Local5: The Rajput dharma is to eat meat, drink liquor, hunt and fight. Rajputs can't join a shopkeeper or leatherworker caste. After the Independence stole their privileges, men like Rama have no choice but to be policemen.
Rama: I am a Rajput! This is like I'm in the zenana, the maharaja's harem that was off bounds to everyone but the eunuchs; I never talk to women! 
Devi: Unless?
Rama: What's there to talk about with a woman who is not your mother or servant?
Devi: I must complain to you: you never shut up in front of me. What gender am I?
Rama: Anyone you choose?you're the shaman! And a foreigner.
Devi: Typical. So what do you want?
Rama: Serious sex. I have fantasies about you naked in my power to do anything I want with—Shiva lingam! I'm made for you. I can't eat, I don't sleep, I'm all yours. Take me!
Devi: Mix this powder into your chai 3 times a day.  You'll feel better in a week. Come back if you have no improvement. I don't treat men, so keep it between us.
Devidasi: Horny pig! It's your lucky day! Devi just had a schoolboy, so she's in a good mood. Devi could give you an impotence powder and you'd never know the difference! Ha, ha! Such a buffoon! Men are ridiculous! You make me laugh!
Devi: Love, shut your gate.
Rama: You must take me! I'll be in your debt.
Devi: If you haven't noticed, I don't take much.
Rama (confused): Why not?
Devi: It's easier to give than to take.
Rama: That makes no sense.
Devi: That's because you're not a woman.
Mita (sharply chiseled features, young, in yellow salvar-kameez): I suffer from nightmares for the past 10 years. My worst nightmare is that my mother is sexual. A man rapes her and she likes it. Then he tries to rape me. I haven't slept in years because he may come in my sleep and do the bad act with me too. I had a vision of your face telling me you'd cure me. I come 1,000 miles to see you.
Devi: Can you visualize getting raped? Not dreaming, but with your eyes open: now. What do you see? Is it familiar to you? Do you fantasize it? It's ok baby it's ok. You're good. (Mita cries hysterically at this. Devi hugs her) The bad monster is sexual guilt, it's killable. When you leave here, you'll never get pleasure and pain confused again, I promise. Humiliation is the opposite of joy. We'll dance.

(Meanwhile, the locals continue the chattering commentary in the background of all.)
Local2: Look how Devi's magic necklace catches the light, she never takes it off, it is her source of power.
Local5: It materialized on her neck in the temple.
Local4: Every shaman wears a mirror to ward off bad spirits; when she calls a demon out she must be careful not to get it into herself. The mirror protects her. The goddess gave it to her as a shield.
Local2: The necklace is her safety net, but also a danger because if it reflects everything off, nothing penetrates her. Devi fears this necklace will kill her one day.
Local1: Rekha tells it: with one quick gesture Devi can kill herself anywhere at any moment, and with one ignorant false move anyone can kill her too. But no one knows how.
Local3: She can't be destined to be killed. She's in Nirvana.
Local5: Deviji loves danger too much. It's bad for the town. 
Local1: A shaman never uses her power for herself, she lets herself vulnerable. If she did not, she wouldn't understand other people.

(While back at the center:)
Sita (her face covered with scars): My husband attacked me with a razor, he came home and saw his mother cooking instead of me; they let me out of the hospital but if I go back, he'll finish me off; he'll burn me and get a new wife to bear him sons. Can I stay here?
Devi: Wife burning gives me the creeps. I'll send you to a shelter. You'll learn a craft. You're strong.
Rama: I never met a woman like you. I dream of you at night; I smell you all day; I fantasize taking you for my prisoner.
Sita: My sister was killed by her mother-in-law for offering her a cup of tea without sugar; she poured kerosene on her and set her on fire without a word after taking one sip. I'm afraid of shelters. Marriage can kill you. Marriage kills.

Local5: A girl was set on fire as she watched TV by her mother-in-law today; she had brought with her a TV, a table, a bed, a sofa, clothes, but failed to provide money to help her husband's spareparts business and paid with her life. Ha,ha!
Local3: My dharma was that my wife would go blind. Every morning I lead her to an open space to relieve herself, bathe her and leave her in the sun and come to sell puppets to the shops. She can't be alone in the dark. She's my load.
Local4: You must marry a new wife. She can take care of your old wife. Devi will find you one. Or she'll cure your old one.
Local1: Shelters for destitute women don't teach skills. Social services supply women to politicians and the police. Their funds are sanctioned from the politicians. Then when a local politician wants a favor from a higher up, he sends a woman. And the women get food and shelter. The old do housekeeping. If they refuse sex, they have suicide as an option.
Local4: That woman does not wear bangles; it is inauspicious if a married woman doesn't wear her glass bangles.

Devi: Rikhu, get me a meeting of mothers-in-law; after being imprisoned all their life, they turn into executioners.
Roma (in conservative Western clothes and big cross, preaches to Sita): To those who suffer but not for love, suffering is suffering. But those who suffer for love, suffer not, and their suffering is fruitful in God's eyes.
Rekha (bearded dwarf, limps, her teeth stained red by betel juice, spits often): It is Manu's law that a wife should look at her husband as a god, regardless of his merits or faults; she must not deviate from the women's norm just because of the failure of a man.
Sita: He had a wife before me. My sister-in-law burned her with the hot iron on her private parts and gave her Baygon to drink. They said she frothed from her mouth because of demons and killed herself. No woman burns her private parts to die. The froth was from the poison. He asked her family for 10,000Rs they didn't give. He kept her jewelry. I didn't say a word, but now my turn has come.
Devi: Don't worry, I'll send you to be a nurse. My spirit will be with you. (Devi kisses her, Sita looks changed)
Rama: Don't I get a kiss? What am I, warmed up shit?
Devi: So is this a routine visit? I can't take a break from healing, but it's the lightweight session so we can talk while they talk. I hear them under any conditions, even when they're silent which is rare. Can we terrorize Sita's little husband before he burns his next wife?
Rama: Tell him you'll put a curse on him. Village law is above civil law, we can't interfere in family matters; all he has to say is that a wife was unfaithful and it's no crime to kill her.
Banadevi (in pink, servile, cropped hair, a faint moustache, proud handsome face): My Pa always told me to stay a virgin. I refuse to do the act with my husband. I've been a dutiful daughter and I'll be an obedient wife, but I can't do that. Pa loves me so he sent me here to be cured before he sends me to my inlaws. I vomit at the thought of doing the work with a man. Tell him I can't, there is something wrong with me, a disease, and I must not be married. I can become a devidasi, dedicate myself to the temple of Devi. I'll dance.
Devi: He forgot to tell you sex is pleasure. If you can dance well, you'll be good at it. And you forget devidasis are holy prostitutes and you'll have to sleep with any pilgrim who comes. Dancing and singing is not enough. Or is that what you want, to be a whore, but under the auspices of the goddess? If you need an excuse, I'll give you a better one: joy. I can make sure it's done well for you the first time. (Banadevi in spasms froths from the mouth.)
Rama: Can you make sure it's done well for me?
Devidasi: She lies! Let us see you dance, froth-mouth!
Rikhu (kind face, in laundered white sari of nurse): As part of the movement to rehabilitate devidasis and get them out of prostitution, several knitting centers are being set up. Devidasis are illegal!
Devidasi (pulls Banadevi's hair, pinches her, running around her, mocking): You silly idiot! A virgin! Pff! No man wants to come near you, that's the truth! You're too dark, ha!
Devi: A virgin holds an appeal for me: few things are as fascinating as the joys of initiation?to fulfillment; but orgasmic fulfillment is not the only form of sexual experience, it's the opening yourself up to sex that counts.
Rama: I've got what counts. So how about it?
Rekha: Marriage to a god brings no fulfillment that lasts. A wife must worship her husband as her god; her service to him is the measure of her religion.
Rama: Do I have to be a woman to get some attention around here? Next time I'm coming in a sari.
Devi: Coming in a sari. You suffer from the same prob as my patients: sexual malnutrition—but they usually look quite appetizing for the lack of wear—gleaming and moist despite the neglect. What is your name sweetheart? (touches her)
Banadevi (mutters in awe): I can't say my own name. A woman is not supposed to say her name. A name is a selfish centre.

Local2: A woman who speaks about herself is a loose woman. To voice a pain is a sacrilege, a breach of family trust.
Local5: That girl came after a stillborn son, so she's unlucky. Her mother had her gathering firewood; she separated her with a sickle and named her Banadevi, spirit of the forest.
Local4: Her father is a Brahmin priest but she'll marry below caste. 1500Rs are spent on her marriage! 
Local5: He and 2 brothers are priests. They live in one house, do their ablutions, read the texts. They visit their wives from 9 to 12. It's dangerous to be with a woman after midnight. But they have no sons to become priests as their fathers and grandfathers were. It's because of this unlucky Banadevi.
Local4: One daughter eloped, so her sister had to be given to the temple in penance as devidasi. Banadevi is the first girl to marry. They need a son from her. The groom is poor.

Devi: If you tell me your name, I'll give you a halo that will stay permanently silver over your little head.
Banadevi (whispers): My name... name is... It's improper! The goddess is honored by holy prostitution. The money belongs to the goddess and to reject it or any man at the temple is a sin; I'll fulfill my duty to the goddess.
Devi: Alright, you can stay here and be my second devidasi. I'll give you a new name you can say: Iphigenia.
Swami: A guru always renames his disciples.
Devidasi: No! If she stays, I go! That's a hard long name. She's too dumb to say it! She has parents, she has eyes, she should be married! I was a girl without a family, that's worse than being a dog!
Devi: I'd like a virgin at the door; but my Devidasi rebels. You can help distribute meals or clothes; you'll be a little Devi to the poor when you give them things. That's religion.
Roma: No. Religion is the impulse to transcend mortality.
Sita (cracks and starts a prophesy): I see the god. The god tells me: "Devi is my mouth and my eyes, she will lay her hands on the people and take all their pain onto herself."
Devi: Says who? I'll take the pain away but not to dump it into myself. Hear that? I'm being groomed for martyrdom. Pain is to be banished, darling, not transferred. No woman needs it, alright? Forget pain. Life is fun. (Sita, berserk, falls on the soil, held by those around praying madly, more women shout seeing visions, Devi lays her hands on them absentmindedly, eyes glazed; to Rama) It's repressed sexual energy; very concentrated, so it works—miracles. When I don't fuck too much.
Rama: Just me.
vo: Love breeds madness, murder, and, in the end, holocaust.

Local1: She is a true devi. Her love is magical. At her touch a blazing light breaks over you, the glory of countless suns.
Local5: Lord Krishna who plays his flute so irresistibly that the wives slip from their husbands' beds and run to the wood to dance the night through with the god, is Devi's ancestor.
Local4: He is the young god of abandon who intoxicates girls with cunning amorous pranks. Krishna gets all the women.
Local1: Devi is the reincarnation of Akkamahadevi, the saint who shed her clothes and covered her body with her tresses. She lived with lord Shiva and died at 22.

Dr Roy: Sex should be allowed only for birth, to be done extremely sparingly, for it robs you of spiritual advance.
Ronda: I have panic-attacks and hallucinations. I fear that someone is always staring at me. Can I become normal?
Devi: I enjoy their casual plunging necklines and glittering sheaths. Nothing as erotic as the rising and ebbing tide of sweat drops on a hysterical woman's breasts. Hey, everyone is always staring at me too. So just put on a good show for them. Are you on friendly terms with the mirror?
Rekha: A woman must be invisible. Pull down your veil!
Swami: An enlightened guru can make 7 simultaneous speeches.
Banadevi: I've never eaten meat, milk, egg, sugar. The goddess will understand. Don't cure me. It will kill me.
Devi: Iphigenia, if you give your body without "strings" and assurances, you may free yourself from the compulsion to suffering, that comes from fear—if you emerge from the terrifying journey into the darkest sexuality, you'll be in possession of yourself and won't need to hold on—to men, family, god—for dear life anymore, for a sense of being alive.

Local1: Is she delivering an oracle? A bad oracle?
Local5: The followers of perfect gurus are lovers. The guru is the Beloved, the face of god. That is Devi's meaning. A guru calls her lovers 'My Self.'

Rama: Wouldn't you rather cuddle up with a big bear like me?
Amri (fast): Instead of bringing happiness my son's birth has brought me depression; I plunged into a suicidal tendency. How can I become a doting mother?
Rekha: She is a true wife who has born a son, Manu says. The first son performs the last rite of the parents that brings release from put-the world; he is the saviour.
Devi: Your son is your jailor. Man as son rather than father or husband or lover, is most responsible for keeping women locked in a chastity belt and in their biological role.
Rama: Back to me now! That's the best subject!
Roma: God brings His Son to birth in each one of us.
Devi (Devidasi every so often stares dead into Devi's eyes, can't hear, Devi pushes her): Come on, go! (she's frozen; it takes her time to lower her eyes and leave dazed; to all:) Don't gear your life to others and neglect your resources. Salvation is not in the sacrifice of yourself to children or family but in the refusal to make that sacrifice for the comfort of the community blessing and the selfpity it gives.

Local1: Her words are treasures against time.
Local2: Is Devi what they call a spitfire?
Local4: Devi is not human of course. Anything is easy for her.

Rayana (pretty, in dark blue, harsh voice): Before I married my husband lied about his first wife, said she was a sister-in-law. He was unsatisfied with her, she was old. But when he died, she kept everything. She had the sons.
Swami (fat, very conspicuous in saffron dress and manner, large soft face): I've come here with other swamis, hoping our meeting with the Beloved Devi will earn us a following or patrons; if you introduce us to your people...
Devi: My people? I'm not Moses. Take as many as you need.
Swami (humbly): You are a mother and I bow to you.
Devi: My dear saint, I'm not a mother.
Swami: The goddess is our mother. We must penetrate through her outer terrible destroying form to reach her nurturing core. The way to succeed is to visualize becoming one with the goddess in sexual union.
Rikhu (scornful): You sound like a tantric.
Devi: Rama, we'll never get a word through. Come in. Girls, talk to me through the door. It's best if I only have the voice to go on, I don't get distracted by your looks.
(The healing room has a particular shade of darkness; a dark scarlet glow from the fire bathes her in a dim eerie light; candles, enormous brass lamps; cluttered with dusty empty phials and bottles along sagging shelves that lean in precarious balance against the walls that are peeled off exposing red sandstone under the paintings; stone pestle and oval mortar of herbalists, rusty kerosene stove in alcove, an old sofa next to a spitoon and a tin basin full of ash, stubs and empty packs; sometimes a peacock enters and heads for the basin where it forages among cigarette stubs; the floor is strewn with burned match-sticks, ash, sugar, petals; webs, a beehive and a bird nest hang by the tiny windows. The walls are covered with chips of mirrorwork where patients look at themselves or at Devi.)
Rama (low): There was another strange death we closed off as suicide. A woman's death is no cause for concern, there're dozens of reasons for them to die. But it bothers me that these last ones don't fit our traditional patterns.
Swami: I am the renowned Perfume Swami. I can give the perfume of any flower to any object or person.
Devi: Harnessing god to make odours? Cheap labour.
Disciple (ceremonious, bland): The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats urgently summons you to her side, Ma Devi. The Yogi asks to be sanctioned and freed by you. She's ready for her Nirvana.
Devi: I don't like the yogi's choices. Tell her I refuse.
Rama (in confidence): Women can't decapitate themselves! And why wear this double x. It's the 5th or 6th one this month.
Devi: These xx murders can't be buried under; they'll cause a stir. They are done to draw attention to something.

Local5: A film actress was found with vomit on her and poison at the washbasin; she was pregnant?probably killed by her lover or her mother who opposed the alliance. Her mother too committed suicide, after saying "my daughter was murdered, my daughter was not a coward, only cowards commit suicide."
Local2: A girl took poison and was brought to the hospital in a coma, but Dr Roy received a mystery phone-call and declared her dead; a Bania promised her marriage but ditched her because his mother disapproved of her. Banias are the merchant caste, they marry for money.
Local4: Rajputs require land and social standing. Only the poor will take a girl without dowry, if they need a worker.

(Simultaneously, outside:)
Swami: I am known for my linkages with the Sultan of Brunei, Adnan Khashoggi, politicians, filmstars and a former Miss Universe. Experience a miraculous way of enjoying perfumes!
Rikhu: But can you materialize flowers?
Swami: I produce perfumes by astral means. It took me 12 years to master my art. Stretch out your hand.
Devidasi: Wasting 12 years for scents you can buy with a few rupees from any florist! Who needs you?
Rikhu: What if our perfume factories go out of business? Banadevi: I'll renounce my family and join the Jains then. I'll dress in white, shave my head, be silent, carry a stick and a red pot and beg for my meal. I'll walk day and night.
Devidasi (in song): Good riddance! You'll carry a broom to sweep the ground before each step; you'll wear a cheesecloth over your nose to save insects; you'll eat only fruit that has fallen from trees. You'll be dead in a week!
Swami: I will permit the factories to keep their trade! My only purpose is to demonstrate the creative power of God.
Roma: Why should anyone desire what pleases the body only?

Local1: Devi's soul exudes an intoxicating aroma: musk, the aphrodisiac. If she bottled it, we'd be very rich.
Local2: Devi's soul lifts out of her every night and wanders. Those faithful hear it fly.
Local1: The water in which Devi washes her body has restoring powers if you drink it. The patel asked her to keep it in barrels and sell it to the visitors.
Local5: Ma Yogi says Devi's done things, worse than anyone can imagine. She eats cremation ash soup for power.

Priya (shouts through door): I married 9 months ago and I am not yet pregnant. All my relatives and friends ask about this. I feel very depressed. When will I conceive?
Rekha: At full moon put a knife under your pillow. Sons are conceived on moonlit nights, in the first half of the night when the man is stronger. A girl comes in the second half of a dark night, when the woman is stronger.
Priya: My mother-in-law taunts me and asks her son to take a new wife. He is her only son in 7 daughters. I feel guilty for failing him. If he takes another wife, I will accept it.
Disciple: The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats sends these words: 'Angelic Guru, my spiritual anguish is such that I can no longer bear my life without meeting the Great Beloved face to face! I am appealing to thee, O Goddess! I wish to see thee materialized before me in thy physical body, to bless me that I may perceive thee in thine infinite form!'
Devi (shouts from inside): I'm not in the mood to talk shop with an old skinny yogi, and I've no respect for her, ok?
Mana: I have small breasts. I am very worried and embarrassed. A pir healer told me to wear a moonstone and they'd grow, but I saw no change. I hide myself and never go out. Can you cure me?
Devidasi: Look at this poor girl's breasts! Just like peas! Mine are bigger than those and I'm not even 10!
Banadevi: Or I'll raise a small temple in the square and put up a pennant the colour of a virgin flame. I'll be a saint.
Rekha: Even with small breasts, if your belly is big, you'll bear a son.
Hira: I am happily married. But I can't concentrate on anything. I feel something is missing. There is no inner peace. How can I overcome this state?
Devi (shouts): Go to College. I'll talk to your husband.
Rekha: Have a son. The first son carries the family line. A woman's life is full who has a husband and son.
Swami: A woman is blessed to bear life and nurture it, be it good or evil. But a man can separate himself from the world. If this was a male guru's place it would be deserted. He would clap his hands once and out of nowhere disciples would silently appear to serve him. I make a point to have papers from the families of my female disciples allowing them to be my followers. Does Ma Devi do that?
Rikhu: Deviji can't keep track of her followers.
Patient: I live in a village with only women and children; the men work in the Gulf. Some women now have transistors and gold chains. My husband was an umbrella-repairman, but he is in Kuwait for the past 10 years. He writes every year that he's coming home on leave, but he never turns up. Will he come back to me? Is he faithful? (Through the door:)
Devi: Get a loan and open a movie theatre in your village.
Devidasi: Consider yourself a widow! Ha, ha!

Local5: In that village the women are lonely. Husbands return once a year to make children. Some spin all day for 1R because their husbands sold their houses to buy the tickets and never returned. The lucky ones wait.
Local2: Those women are sick. They have lost their peace, their men, their way of being. They should all live with Devi.
Local4: Police drive there once a week and sleep with them all.

(Inside)
Rama: You need a man by your side. You can be my kept woman. I'm the authority here, no one will bother you about it.
Devi: Can you change tone for a sec? This time you can't review the victims' domestic problems that were confided in me and conclude that since they had a reason to die, it's off your hands. These are very un-Indian murders. If a psycho killer is loose, it can get hairy. He kills the wrong girl, and you have a job in your hands.
Rama: Here is the deal: you know what happens to any female in this state; you find a killer for me, I produce evidence, arrest him and publicize full-volume; keep quiet till then. Or I'll take you in for questioning. Only you knew them all.

Local2: Rama threatens her to obtain sexual favours.
Local3: Devi helps the police solve crimes committed against her women and in return they steer clear of her center.
Local4: She will have to sleep with him. She's a single woman. He can beat her up and drive her out of town if he gets angry.
Local5: Rama's wife sleeps with the MLA and the CM, so they can't indict him without involving themselves.
Local3: My neighbor asked him to put on his uniform and come to her house where a man was drunk and shouting; her husband was out at the mill. The man harrassed her so she'd leave the property in fear and he could take it over. Rama took 2 constables to her house and raped her. They threatened to do it again if she spoke. She said nothing. 3 days later Rama returned because she hadn't spoken and he knew it was safe. She put up a fight and he strangled her. I heard it all. Her husband filed a complaint with the IG. But the MLA called and said to do nothing. Rikhu pressed the husband to ask for an inquiry. The MLA got upset and offered him 20,000 Rs to stay quiet. Rama got upset too and beat him up so badly he was declared mad and put in the insane asylum.
Local5: Well, rape is always the woman's fault.
Local2: The wine-seller was robbed and went to the police. The thief paid them off, so they took the man to an insane asylum. He is there 22 years; his wife committed suicide.

Rukshana's voice: I am married with a child; my boss forces me to sleep with him. I can't prove it as he leaves no marks on me; if I take him to court, I'll lose my job and be marked as a loose woman and a troublemaker. I also don't have the money. But as I keep silent, he abuses me and passes me around to his subordinates as a favour. He doesn't even give me a raise. Make my boss impotent!
Rama: Nabbing a person for each case I risk public exposure, press sniffing around, I prefer suicides. The victims were all lookers. An impotent jerk out there is having fun. I guess that rules me out. So you want to get laid?
Devi: These are crimes of a clear vision. Rama, I don't get laid. I do the laying. Are you married?
Rama: So what? You're a foreigner, living alone?it makes no difference to you.
Sita (heard): You give me the strength to live. I love how you make me feel. Like I'm carrying live fish in my hands.
Devi: (shouts) Only she who says she did not choose is the loser. (To Rama) I never fuck married men. No man is worth hurting another woman for.
Rekha (her ear on the door): Having women out of marriage is a Rajput man's honor. Women cannot own men.
Rama: Ah, we'll change all that?I love being the first anyway. (Kisses her abruptly) Has anyone ever kissed you like that? Don't you get a kick out of me? You think I'm a real man. Devi, it's all over your face, I can see it in your eyes: you love me!
Devi: People can see anything they want in my eyes, they are a projection screen, cop, so don't put too much store in what you see in my eyes.
Rama: You look into your eyes?what do you see?
Devi (in his eyes): Your id.
Rama: My what? OK, I'm crazy about you, how about a quickie?
Devi: Why are you in a hurry? First you divorce your wife.
Rama: I can't wait that long?I'm getting desperate!
Devi: Prove to me that it's a matter of life and death; then I'll make you die and go to heaven.
Woman's voice: Deviji, bless my asthma medication or I won't take it. The pharmacy man said you would touch it first.
Rama: You challenge me to kill myself for you? Rajputs don't commit suicide, not even faced with defeat. We die fighting.
Rukmawwa (in flowerprint, with severe burn marks): I went on a dharna-hunger strike in front of my house asking for the right to live there. I married with handsome dowry and gold; my husband wanted to be a partner in my father's business and when it didn't happen, he sent me to my parents. The community leaders returned me to my husband but he beat me and sent me back. I resisted pressures to abort and had a daughter. My brother lodged a complaint with the police that my inlaws were asking 100,000Rs from me; he wrote letters to the PM and the CM for help; he appealed to our panchayat-saint who ordered my inlaws to take me back; they tried to burn me, then sent me away by force. My brother heard my husband remarried and got an injuction against it. My dharna failed, I am homeless. I'm in despair.
Devi (walks out during the above): Hunger-strike is self-punishment. Why go back to that asshole anyway? Your parents chose him, they gave the dowry, it's their deserved loss. You look like you had a mini sati. I'll find you a haveli here, you can cook for the center and I'll pay you. No one will call you loose if you work for me. Is this your girl?
Devidasi: Her girl is too skinny from the dharna! She looks so bad I let her in! She's been eating like a pig!
Devi (caresses girl eating famished with her hands): What is your name, little girl? Go to school. I'll call you Alice. When you grow up, become a poet. Where are those small breasts? I'll touch them. (She does) You have lovely hard nipples. If you caress them like this, they'll grow.
Swami: Mother is the earth where things grow, father is the sky who protects. Mother is fire, father is rain. The black in our eye is mother, the white is father. The black absorbs, the white throws back. The black is vision and the white protection. The blood in the veins is mother, the bones are father. Mother, I come to you as father.
Dr Roy: Semen must be conserved for the spiritual path. My only physical contact is when I touch Ma Devi's feet.
Rama: By the way, I brought you some women. They're outside. Their daughters got kidnapped to be sold in Pakistan; they found out where the touts keep the fresh batch of girls and want us to raid the place, but we must tip off the touts because we get commission from the brokers, then we'll go in and look incompetent. I mean they invest 5,000Rs per girl before she's sold. I can send the touts to beat these women up. But Rikhu may cause a stir. So just calm them down, ok? Or their blood will flow.
Devi: I have no room, Rikhu must handle them. I cure.
Rama: I just told you Rikhu is the problem. Promise them a miracle if they're peaceful and send them home. And hurry up and seduce me soon. I gotta get some fresh air. (leaves)
Devi: Ram, Ram! (under her breath): Motherf!
Swami: Ram is the burning mantra.
Devidasi: Cast a spell on him, make him a pig or a monkey!
Rehmet's Husband (in dhoti, short, ugly, older, glasses): My wife needs you Ma Devi. I am a Congress party worker. She embarrasses me to my colleagues. She can't entertain.

Local4: Why care for his wife's health? A man can breed children with any wife. If his bull dies, then it's serious, he loses his livelihood. If my bull is sick, I rush him to the vet, but not my child. I feed my bull wheat and I eat cheap ragi-grain. I massage and bathe him. We run bullock-cart races.
Local5: A politician needs a wife who gives parties and cooks food the party workers can't resist and speaks in English. His wife is his bull.
Local4: My bull is my companion. I bring him home in the dead of the night. He is more than a wife. She is a tool to continue the generation. I buy marigolds and decorate my bull. What gives a man bread should be worshipped. He predicts men's future with a nod of his grave head. Everyone respects him.

Rehmet's Hus: It's as if her torture has become her delight. Maybe she doesn't want to be cured. She has melancholia but no doctor can figure out what causes it. I'm at a deadlock. She hadn't made a sound in 9 months, last week she spoke your name and asked for you. So we found out who you were.
Devi: No prob. I'll see her here in person.
Rehmet's Hus: She can't move; she can't go to the bathroom and is carried by servants to it. She doesn't acknowledge anyone but the doctors say she has her wits; she doesn't react, she is numb; she can't use her body, she's forgotten how to walk, and I need a son! My religion doesn't allow divorce and I can't have a second wife without the first wife's permission; but she doesn't speak. If doctors found her insane, I'd be in the clean. But to them she is normal.
Devi: I know already what's causing this. She knows how much you want a boy? (He nods) And that you wouldn't stop trying until you got a male child. (He nods) Did she enjoy sex?
Rehmet's Hus: Huh? We don't talk, we're an orthodox couple. I'm free to rape her but I don't force her in her condition.
Devi: Was she a corpse in bed?
Rehmet's Hus: We only slept together 2 weeks and she took ill. A woman needs years to loosen up. Women can't feel pleasure as men do. Men need to release themselves.  
Devi: Says who?
Rehmet's Hus: Everyone knows it. It would be improper.
Rikhu: Women never talk about sex to their husbands, Devi! Your husband will ask 'What do you know about satisfaction, you must be sleeping around'.
Devi: Do you like sleeping with her? Is she pretty?
Rehmet's Hus: I don't know. I can't tell. She is my wife.
Devi: Does she have big eyes, lips? What color are her eyes?
Rehmet's Hus: I don't know, I haven't noticed. That is a feminine matter. It embarrasses me. Life is so predestined.
Rikhu: It is improper to describe the beauty of a woman. It raises bad thoughts.
Devi: Are they green? Black?
Rehmet's Hus: I can go and look. It can explain her disease?
Dr Roy: Mother, do you have a spell for thinning hair?
Devi: Hi doc, buy an herb. Was she delicate to begin with? In build? In character? Is she shy?
Rehmet's Hus: Oh, I can't discuss this with a woman.
Dr Roy (shifty except when he speaks of Devi, speaks in tortured nervous way; loud bush shirt and tight drainpipe pants, looks at her in adoration): I am Dr Rammohun Roy. I recommend all my hopeless cases to Mother. She is a woman who has seen the Light. You can speak freely.
Rehmet's Hus: She must be just like any other woman. Normal.
Devi: Why did you marry her?
Rehmet's Hus: We're same caste. Our parents work together.
Devi: Is she in purdah? Under the veil?
Rehmet's Hus: Like every woman in her family. She first saw my face in a silver mirror after the maulvi pronounced us man and wife. She shows her face in front of family.
Rekha: If you have something precious you hide it, guard it. If you have a wound, you don't expose it, you bandage it.
Devi: Your friends from Delhi don't tell you to follow the changing times? You want a good hostess, no?
Rehmet's Hus (proud): Their wives are in purdah too. They don't go out, not even to vote. When she's ill, the doctor makes his diagnosis outside the room, getting details of the symptoms from the maid. Or I go talk to him and take the medicine home. If I am away, she uses mustard oil and salt until I can renew her medicine. It is her honor. She believes in it, it gives her satisfaction, who am I to stop her? My wife even reads the Koran in Arabic! Everything that needs to be known is in that book.
Devi: Sex in the Koran is compared to a husbandman's tilth; he sows the seed to reap the harvest, but doesn't sow out of season or cultivate in a way that will injure or exhaust the soil. The same regard is due to your wife.
Dr Roy: A faith that accepts and raises no questions is the best therapy. A doctor in a country run by gods needs faith.
Devi: I can cure her; I don't know if she'll want to bear you a son and the decision must be hers; you can't force her to be a mother or a sexual partner, if you want her cured.
Rehmet's Hus: Why wouldn't she if she was cured? What use is she otherwise? Why did we get married? Is she sterile?
Devi: I don't know why she got married. Women in India are forced into marriage daily by the thousands. This disease is her only way out. Unless I can show her that she's missing all of life by trying to break free, and I assure her she has another way out, there can be no cure. If she can't see it, she will die, then you remarry. But there is a good chance she'll be a loving, happy woman; in either case, you won't be stuck with an invalid for the rest of your life.
Rehmet's Hus: Fifty-fifty would you say? I won't force her then?on my mother's bones. When can you see her?
Devi: I pay house visits, but the shock of being moved will help her. The expectations raised by a long pilgrimage, the company of other women in her position here, my fame as a holy woman, all will help. Don't delay, I don't know how long I'll be here. If she absolutely can't travel I'll come.
Rehmet's Hus: Shamans don't move!
Dr Roy: Mother, you wouldn't leave us unprotected!
Devi: You have a few too many certainties in life.
Rehmet's Hus (profusely): Forgive me Mother for my wrong answers. You must be bothered at me. It is my fault, I don't know better. I am honored by the time you spent with me and beg forgiveness for my tight tongue. Ask me anything. About your fees... Money is of no concern.
Devi: I do not accept fees. Good day. (He leaves surprised) 
Tourist: Do you sell vegetarian aphrodisiacs?

Local1: She never says I am god, she never says I am nothing.
Local3: He is a fool who cannot conceal his wisdom.
Local5: There're thousands of false gurus, people waste years going from one to another. The texts say: If the disciple is ready, the Master appears. Like Devi appeared in Devipur.
Local2: A true Master has a transparency; even in her clothes.
Local1: Gods are not modest.

Swami: Stretch your hand. What perfume do you want?
Tourist: Rose. (Swami doesn't touch her. She smells.) Wow! Incredible! A smell of rose from my dusty palm! 
Swami (puts his hands together): It is all the doing of my guru. Imagination and illusion are better than observation.
Dr Roy: Can I have some lilly of the valley?
Swami: Only indigenous flowers. I haven't expanded that far.
Dr Roy: I'll settle for jasmine. Make it strong.
Swami: Enlightenment is the recognition of the senses.
Dr Roy (smells): Oh what a gift! You must smell fresh all day. You probably never need to take a bath.
Swami: My guru was a yogi in Tibet who reached the age of 1000. All of the Calcutta intelligentsia are my followers.
Dr Roy: I slept with my old aunt and her friends when I was 15, as every Indian boy does. She seduced me in her house; when I ejaculated I was spooked. I was reduced to a spot.
Swami: What matters only is to pray out of pure devotion; those people are not reborn; if you're attached to family, property and desire, you die unresolved and return as a ghost, or you die untimely and in the next life you'll be born a pig, a sow followed everywhere by a litter of pigs.
Man: Mother, my cow was stolen and my wife ran away! Help!
Dr Roy: I haven't been with a woman since. Now that I found my guru, for the first time I can see destiny in front of me. I get premonitions of doom, but Ma Devi says 'Bad things happen, then the mood swings, and the band plays on'.
Swami: She has the impassive face of a true guru. All one's good deeds are to no avail if you don't have a guru, you're like an animal without a guru. No understanding or contact with god is possible without a guru, just as without clouds there can be no rain and without seeds there can be no tree.
Devi: Babe, what are all these men doing here? Are you blind? No stray men allowed!
Dr Roy: Mother, when are you making prasad, holy communion?
Devi: I'm not your mother Roy, your vibes are burning me. Did you run out at the hospital already? Sugar crystal is bad for you. Didn't your Mom ever touch you?
Roy: What is holy is not bad. So many energy forces and demons are responsible for who we are. Our only protection is darshan, to touch you and be blessed.
Devidasi: You're a horny devil, doctor! Everyone knows you come every day for darshan, just to touch Devi's feet and peek under her clothes!
Swami: A perfect Master has energizing humour and superhuman consideration for our human problems. She is alive to every look in our eyes, every tone of our voice. She cares for our happiness and shows tenderness in 1000 unexpected ways.
Dr Roy: My mother has the linen washed daily, she spends her day emptying cupboards, cleaning them and filling them back, the servants always sweep, wash, tidy up. My father washed each coin he received as revenue by the peasants and had the servants hold them with a napkin to put them in his safe. If he touched me for a moment, he immediately washed his hands. Mom never touched me at all, it'd be improper as I am a son.
Swami: The guru says 'Put your parents in the pyre and burn them'. The guru is greater than god, for the guru is made of 5 elements, sky, wind, fire, water and earth. The god is made of only 3, sky, wind, fire. God is too rarefied.
Patient4: I am scared to go out in open spaces. I stopped going to school. I panic at the idea of stepping out of home. If my family take me out forcibly for shopping I feel giddy, start trembling and faint. What is the cure?
Devi: Mix red tika powder in water and pour it over your head, then imagine you're a hungry wild beast roaming the forest ready to lunge. Feel the animal in you, its power, look for prey, look like you feel it! Do that here for a couple of days without stop. Agoraphobia.
Dr Roy: I like to leave my preoccupations and surrender to Ma Devi. Prasad, communion, puts Devi in my stomach.
Rayana: I was married at the age of 1. I came of age when I was old enough to carry 2 pitchers of water on my head. The month I menstruated, he slept with me. I fainted. Tie up her hands and feet and go on with what you have to do, his mother said. He did every night but I was not pregnant. I carried water, firewood, rolled out flat bread, ground cotton seeds for cattle but he couldn't feed me. I weeded fields, broke stones, cleaned stables for the patel; at the end of the day I stood under the balcony and the patel's wife threw down dry rotis; food was my wage; I don't know how to count money, I never earned any. I did puja to a god every morning and to a husband every evening until he died.
Devi: The patel's wife was also told what to do. She lived petrified in fear—of the patel, of neighbors, of gods, of herself. What do you see in your dreams?
Rayana: I haven't learned how to dream. I was widowed at 12. When my husband died, my father wailed like a woman and kicked me out of his house. My husband left 5 sons and a daughter and there was no space for me in the house. As I was still young, I was married off to an old man; he died 5 months after the wedding. I am twice widowed. I have nowhere to go. I never met strangers before. The goddess is my last resort. The goddess sent me into the world; she can give me a new lease of life. I'll do anything, even clean toilets.
Devi: If a priest throws flowers on a lump of shit and bows to it, it becomes God. What gives hope becomes God. I'm not a God. I can give you your dignity and strength. I need you here. Is your name Rayana? (nod) You're my new gatekeeper.
Devidasi: She'll let all the pretty women in! She doesn't have a special other sense like me, she can't smell souls!

Local4: That Rayana is an untouchable, a harijan.
Local2: A year ago she wasn't allowed to step inside the patel's house. Now she can deny him entrance into Deviji's center. She just became the guard to our holiest spot. A disgrace!
Local1: Devi is caste-less being a foreigner, so she can move freely into homes of all the castes which we're forbidden to do; she is the only one who has access to everyone. In a holy place caste restrictions are suspended.

Dr Roy: I'm nonattached, like Devi; I do my work not for myself, but to offer service.
Swami: Ma, who was your guru?
Devi: Nobody. Roy, it's because your Mom never touched you.  (Devidasi runs around, throws down the bucket, upsets the exercises, laughs uproariously) Babe I want you next to me all the time, you help me rest. Rayana can handle the gate.
Devidasi: I only love you and I hate those you show love to.
Rikhu: Devi gave Devidasi a third eye vision. She abuses it. I fear that girl.
Swami (to Rikhu): Was her guru's name Nobody? Did she have an Andrej, English, guru?
Rikhu: Nobody knows. She doesn't give a thread to disciples like a guru does. She's not a fake, so she must have a guru and for some reason conceals it.
Swami: Perhaps his absence pains her too much to discuss it.
Woman: Can you make me a potion so my husband is promoted?
Ashri: I am 23. I've not received any tangible proposals yet. When will I marry? We're 6 sisters, unmarried. My father awaits proposals from men who belong to our sect. I am a graduate. What career can I take up? I've gone to bed with my uncle since I was 9. He forces me. Last month my father also began molesting me. Is this my punishment? Should I burn myself? I can leave a note and hurt them.
Devi (tear): I'll get you work teaching women to read and write. Move to Devipur. You'll be all new.
Dr Roy: I'll give you Devi's photograph, if you look at it every morning and evening through a candle flame while you bathe your feet in warm salty water, it will remove all impurities from your nerves and soul.
Rekha: Bai, I have a proposition for you. Let me set up shop in the center and I'll split the profits with you.
Devi: Why don't you join the merchants outside?
Mira (pregnant): I get blamed for everything that happens. I can't produce a male child; but it's not my fault: a witch entered my stomach and ate up my children. Can you kill her?

Local1: I too saw the light of a witch in the bush today.
Local2: No, it was the torch of a dacoit road-robber.
Local5: That is Mira, the dhobi's wife, he washes our clothes to feed daughters and pay for dowries.
Local4: She's in a pido again, the yellow sari with the red dot, it shows she'll be a mother. When the child is in the womb, it wins a woman respect. She may bear a son this time.

Woman: I need an amulet that prevents domestic violence.
Ronda: I'm 38. Last year my menstruation stopped. I don't feel like a woman; my womanly attributes are disappearing; I can't have sex with my husband. I'm in a great panic. What is the remedy? Should I leave my husband? Will he leave me?
Rekha: For my operations I need a closed sacred space. I do family planning. Not the permanent kind, nobody likes it here. If a woman gets sterilized, she is no longer a woman and her husband will leave her. Where will she go then?
Devi: I thought you were a dai, a midwife.
Rekha: I know ancient hymns that magically change the sex of the unborn child if it is female; I circle their belly and predict a son. When I deliver a boy I get a sari or a shiny new watch. But I can be wrong; I flee if I deliver a girl; there're no sweets, no astrologers to predict her fate. Her fate is to be a girl!
Urmilla: My husband is a truck-driver and he only listens to me when I get the goddess in me. The goddess said a spirit possesses me, sent by his mother to kill me so her son can remarry and get more dowry. The goddess tells my husband to kill his mother if I die. Defeat the spirit that drinks away my blood!
Rekha: I feed the milk of the poisonous yellow oliander to female babies. But I can't walk into lower caste homes and women don't like to say they had a girl, they say it was a dead boy. I need an office in a holy place so all can come.
Devi: Does Rikhu know about this method?
Rekha: It has gone on in our community for generations; her Western ideas can't stop tradition. I never kill the third child if female, it brings the family prosperity. The first and fourth bring bad luck.
Dr Roy: I have a couple of dying patients waiting. I didn't eat rice and curd for 5 days to purify myself before coming to you for prasad. You're my only visible way to reach God.
Devi (to Urmilla): Ok, this is interesting enough. Let's meet this spirit and find out what it wants. But first we'll do a little puja for Doc. (Squats under a huge sun umbrella made of colourful Rajasthani mirrorwork. Everyone with ash marks made by Devidasi on their foreheads sits disciplined in line chanting fervently) Put me to sleep. (Shuts her eyes as Devidasi gives her soda, sprinkles on her water from a vessel, puts an ominous bird-mask on her; she dozes off. Light dims, all close their eyes and stretch out their palms in a gesture of supplication and grasping toward her; the possessed lie prostrate at her feet, cradling a foot in their clasped hands, pressing their eyes against it, their left hands extended toward Devi)
vo: In conformity there is no freedom of fear.
Dr Roy (low): We're gathering in her divine vibrations. The cool breeze on our fingertips is our kundalini, our psychic energy, rising. When I touch her I feel cocooned.
Swami: Making sugar holy is creation. Creation is not creativity. Creation destroys and so it is ever the unknown.
Dr Roy: Ma Devi cannot be burned when she dies, she is a world-renouncer. She will be buried in the pure earth and her children will spring forth from it. She will never decompose. She can't be destroyed.
vo: Destruction, the complete emptying of the brain...

Local1 (low): She chews soda so the holy words she speaks are free from earthly attachment. She sprinkles on herself Ganges every day.
Local5: Devi forbids offerings, she doesn't like flowers and food rotting at her feet; she says she is not a lingam.
Local2: She dozes off anytime like a child. That is the sign of a true guru. Now she is breathless. In deep yogic joy.
Local3: It gives me fright! The mirror under her nose never clouds from breathing. She is still and cold. Often those who don't know, think her heart failed and call the doctors.
Local4: We should behold the face of the Goddess behind closed doors. Devi changed that. She has no holy of holies.
Local3: She doesn't want a shrine for herself. Indra is the only god who has no shrine. Maybe she descends from Indra.
Local2: Indra, the king of gods, is an androgyne, a man among men and a woman among women and, as a result of a curse, he is marked by a thousand vulvas. They say Devi has countless vulvas too. She can take thousands of men at once.
Local5: Her mask causes her to be born new, as her father the sun is reborn every dawn after being bathed by Ganges.
Local2: She is not a daughter of the sun. Rajputs are descendants of the Sun god, Suryavanshi!

(Devi lazily removes her foot from the dazed girls' grasp, takes off her mask. All start chanting 'Om Shri Devi Ma!')
Devi: Words exhaust me. My feet are sweaty. The urge for repetition, however beautiful the experience was, is the root of all sorrow. Stop clinging on to me.
All (repeated from mouth to mouth): The good goddess is awake! (All hasten around silently, offer her flowers and sugar, she touches them, gives them back, others give more. They put a coin at her feet and kiss them. She gazes indulgently but blindly)
Dr Roy: A flower touched by Mother is no ordinary flower; it is blessed. Put it in your altar at home. (He gives her a huge bouquet, Devi rolls her eyes) A petal a day keeps the ulcer away, makes the lame walk, a barren woman fertile; it cures measles, chickenpox, smallpox, cholera; it eases scorpion stings and wards off locusts! I use them at the hospital a lot to save lives. (Bows, leaves in tears)
Banadevi: I will be married to you Ma Devi. I'm a believer!
Devi: Ok, enough for today. (bites her lip, whispers) Now don't screw this up, concentrate my love. Devidasi, bring me rosepetals. (She smokes them. A sphinxlike air envelops her. Her eyes sparkle, twinkle as if observing something of interest. An inscrutable silence falls that discomforts all) The obstacles of your past become the gates to the present. This is a moment of transformation. Light comes. What beckons is the creative power of the unknown.
Mita: He is coming, I feel him coming inside me! (wails)
Devi (smiles at sexual pun): Alchemists have a saying, Tertium non data, the third is not given; the transformation from waste matter into gold cannot be documented; no one knows what effects the change; so it is with the mind that moves from its prison to a vast open plain without any movement at all. Now it will happen.
Mira (boy's voice, thrashes): No! No! I won't leave the body of this nice girl! I am well-fed here! Mother, show mercy! If I leave her, her mother-in-law will punish me! I'm safe here! If she has sons, no one will need me!
Devi: It's coming out beautifully. (Loud) Demon, you did well. You brought this girl freedom to do things she would never dare do on her own, show anger and lust. But now she is strong and doesn't need you. (Louder) Bring a peacock! If mom-in-law bothers you again, I'll send a death dream to her but if she loves you, she'll lead a long life in prosperity. Demon, you have permission to enter this peacock. He is beautiful and strong. I'll keep you here and feed you every day sweets and curd. Many of these peacocks have spirits like yourself living in them. (To peacocks) Come over. (They immediately open their tails wide and run to her)
Mira (same voice): I will obey. (Kisses Devi's feet, faints. A peacock goes wild, Devi approaches, calms him at once.)

Local5: It's dangerous keeping these flocks of demons here. If her power weakens, we'll all get inhabited. She doesn't know how to banish them, or maybe she will threaten us with them one day I suppose.
Local3: Look at those peacocks. They keep away the snakes; they can detect poison.
Local2: Peacocks don't mate. Baby peacocks are born from the tears of the male peacock who cries when he looks down and sees how ugly his feet are.
Local1: Devi conquered a cobra. She saw it with its hood swollen running toward her and laughed. The women ran off and prayed but Devi clapped her hands and magnetized the snake. Its hood contracted and it slithered between Devi's legs.
Local4: The peacock courting season is long past. But when they see her they open their tails on cue to her holy femininity.
Local3: Birds have confidence in her. They recognize her mask.
Local2: Her own mother had wings.
Local3: Yes, yes, she was a bird in an early life.
Local2: She has no lines in her hand.
Local4: She says love is a plague. She says love destroys everything. That is all new teachings.

Urmilla: After my marriage I felt body aches and difficulty breathing and began to get into uncontrollable fits of rage.
Urmilla's Husband: She heaps abuse on everyone who comes near keeping the worst curses for me and gets physically violent toward me. She gets such strength at those times it takes 3 strong men to restrain her. (admiringly) She also gets so hungry she can eat up the food cooked for the whole family and drink up a bucket of water.
Urmilla: Before marriage I did not get angry even once; but when the bhuta, the spirit, comes I don't remember what happens to me; they tell me the filthy abuses I've used against my husband but I have no memory of my shameful act.
Devi (smiling): Not bad!
Urmilla's Husband: We were in Ranisati temple for a long time; the bhuta came often but did not reveal his wishes; I want to go home but she will not; when I insist, she gets possessed by her father's spirit and abuses me, threatens to break my legs if I leave his daughter behind; the spirit told everyone I plan to take a 2nd wife and the father would punish me severely. I fear. Then the Goddess said the bhuta would leave when we came here.
Urmilla (stares at Devi, all rhythmically shout 'Victory to the Mother!' Her breathing becomes faster, pain and anger flit across her face in quick succession; suddenly her face is still and devoid of any expression) She has come. (In Devi's confident mocking voice, rapidly) What do you want? Why have you called me? 
Urmilla's Husband (low respectful tone): Please tell us if we should go home now. Is it safe?
Urmilla: Yes, go away. 
Urmilla's Husband: Please tell us if her distress is over; sometimes she is fine and sometimes she starts getting furious. 
Urmilla (excited): I told you. Go home. We'll look after the girl. Have faith. We are with her. 
Urmilla's Husband: What is the bhuta's name... 
Urmilla (thunders back angrily): Why do you want to know the name, villain? The whole family is torturing this poor girl! Starting with your own mother. How many names do you want? 
U's Hus (intimidated, mumbles): Acha, forgive me. 
Urmilla (gloats in her domination): Rub your nose on the floor, perform the sign of abject surrender. (He holds the lobes of his ears and bows before Devi rubbing his nose on the ground 3 times) Hail Devi! (All repeat it)
Mira (with folded hands asks Urmilla): Mother, tell me something about myself too. 
Urmilla (very fast): The villain eats babies in the womb.  Has ruined this poor woman. But everything will be fine. We'll take care of all. (Mira bows to Devi; Urmilla comes to herself, looking exhausted; her face glows with satisfaction still looking up into Devi's face) 
Devi: Urmilla, this time you remember what you said, yes? You're under protection of the mirror, no one will dare hurt you. People will come to you for help. You're free to say what you feel. Alright? We've created a little monster here.
Urmilla (grabs Devi's feet, kisses them): I have no fear of the bhuta returning, since the Mother decided to be with me.
Devi (smiles): When you get bored being a wife, come back and take some of my load. You got yourself a job.
Maya (pale, faint, urban, gray, listless): I have cramps, nausea, rashes, shooting pains behind my eyes; but doctors find I have no disorder. My hunt for my disease began with chest pains, short breath, faintness, irregular heartbeat; I was suddenly disabled. I dragged my feet. Cleaning the house was a major enterprise requiring a week of recuperation. I thought I was slowly poisoned. I stopped eating. I lived in terror. I went from doctor to doctor; they prescribed valium, told me to quit my job and stay at home, gave me checks for vital signs and found nothing wrong with me. 5 years later I still get the pains, the anxiety and panic attacks, I never go out or speak to anyone, I'm a vegetable. Then an old English friend said you do miracles.
Devi: Doctors think it's normal for a woman to be weak. Fuck mainstream medicine. Your body is in bud.
Maya: Without a recognizable problem, I can't be believed, I get no sympathy from anyone. I am not a hypochondriac. Can you diagnose what's wrong with me?
Devi: Just because the symptoms don't match the science, doesn't mean they don't exist. Check the valves of your heart, they may not close well; there's medication to control it, it's a legit life-threatening affliction. If you want love and a reason to live, you've come to the right place. If you want a disease, visit a specialist abroad.
Maya: Is it true you treat only women?
Devi: Of course. What is your name?
Maya: Maya. Is that legal?
Devi: I'm on good terms with the police.
Maya: Are you a Hindu?
Devi: This is not the place for definitions. Your name means illusion.
Maya: It's almost like you don't exist. One minute I see you and the next I don't. I'd like to watch you work first. May I? I'm a professor at the University, on leave now; I wrote for India magazine. I'd like to learn more about you. So what healing method do you use?
Devi: I play priest, witch, nurse, shrink, whatever works. How did I learn? It's my heritage as a woman. A shaman is, in medical lingo, an "essential schizophrenic." That's my role.
Maya: What type of women come here?
Devi: Touch-but-don't-look fantasies, cripples, kooks, Daffy ingenues, waifs, old maids, icebergs, damsels in distress, pinups, travesties, zombies, ballbreakers; they'd all flee with me in an instant and cheerily choose a fate that by society's lights is worse than death. Weird.
Maya: But what do you propose to them?
Devi: A re-evaluation of the systems by which we organize our understanding of the world and our behaviour in it. The usual. To blossom like paper flowers that uncurl when dropped into water.
Maya: I can't imagine you going to the bathroom or shopping or sitting across the table from me over dinner. Do you eat?
Devi: Voraciously, but not according to any plan; I follow my cravings. Listen, be my guest here. You can talk to many women during therapy.

Local5: Devi subsists only on Bisleri bottled water.
Local2: Every morning I see what she has eaten from the garbage Devidasi leaves out. She has the appetite of a tigress—I saw her eat 30 coconuts once laughing to herself.
Local1: Wrong! She eats targolas by the dozen; nothing else; she says the taste reminds her of a girl's vagina. They are soft and transparent and have fragrant juice inside.
Local3: Devi likes only our asha wine made of birds' bones and crushed emeralds and rubies; she drinks it like water. 60 years ago the Devipur wine was served to the Viceroy General. Small birds give sexual power.
Local4: Asha also contains musk and 6 drops of human blood.
Local3: Devidasi deepfries a live bird in a pan, brings it to the table every day and as it cools, it flies out from inside the crust. Devi watches it and laughs. The day it dies, she'll eat something. But not till then.
Local5: Every day she gives away food; treat the body of another like your own, she says, and your own like that of a lover.

Maya: But what will my treatment be? What will you do to me? What if I freak out? Your patients roll on the floor and twitch, vomit, discharge extreme tensions. Can I take it?
Devi: I don't know, that's what keeps me going?same in healing as in killing. Life is a game. Some of my patients have played at dying recently, it's part of the game. Amor fati: Love your fate. Hamlet.
Maya: I don't understand.
Devi: Good.
Maya: I mean, could you try and explain it to me?
Devi: Why is is necessary to understand? We look, but we don't see. Not to possess anything is an extraordinary state, not even to possess an idea.
Devidasi: You don't take care of yourself, you look weary. These bitches don't appreciate you. You waste your breath.
Devi: I live and my face shows it, I am not embalmed, I eat, drink and allow myself to be used?what you see is the good side of my nature. The bad side likes to lead innocence over the divide, into experience.
Swami: Your face projects the serenity of a mother.
Devi: Swami, just say you have a crash on me. Love cannot be made respectable, or part of the social scheme.
Maya: Well, if there's a hotel in town, I shouldn't impose.
Devidasi: Yes, there's no room for you here.
Devi: Pah, stay here, you'll be in the lioness's lair. And we'll work on that heart of yours.
Rekha: The spirits got to your heart? Any shaman would tell you it's too late for you, you'll die in the next 5 days. If Devi wants you to live, you'll escape your destiny. Deviji, are you gonna break our traditions and let her live?
Devi: It's not me, Rekha. She has the will to live.
Devidasi: I don't want this woman living here! You said I could decide all that! She's a rich educated bitch! I don't like her! She hates me! Devi, you don't love me! (cries)
Rikhu: Devidasi is mean to patients. You need an experienced assistant like me. She tears down everything you build.
Devi: She's my joy. She has good eyes. One day she'll be Devi. (Devidasi curls at her feet like a kitten)
Rekha: Some foreign women play at Raj Hotel. They're friends of yours? They are called Salem 666. You must go. I read it in the tea leaves this morning.
Devi: Nice name. Rikhu, you recognize it. Want to go?
Devidasi (to Rekha): Stupid woman, Devi can read your mind! She knows you want her to pay no attention to me! A foreign band! I'll kill anyone who takes her from me! I know ways to kill any of these bitches and never get caught. Just watch!
Rikhu: Tonight I must jog, take a ritual bath, wash the lingam, light incense, read the Ramayana, ring the brass bell and pray. Today I fast for my family. I'll sprinkle the water that washed your feet around the house for prosperity. These rituals bring balance in my life. My prayer room is my only refuge. I can't give it up even for a night out with you. Forgive me. But all is variable except the Mother.
Maya: I carry my puja box with incense and powder for my morning prayer everywhere. I still don't see your ideology.
Devi: But we don't have ideology. We dance. Devidasi, dance for me honey. Maya, we'll dance for the union of opposites?the yes and no, the forward thrust and the pull of inertia or gravity, the yin and yang, the exceptions and the rules. Join us. (patients spread an enormous green sari on the sand and sit in circle?Rekha beats a drum to get them in trance; imposing barren environment, narrow stream of muddy water with small divas floating around them, Rikhu lights a fire reflected in the water, Devi lights her bidi with a burning twig, they hold burning twigs devoutly, creating patterns in the shade, ripples on water, 2 circles of fire on the sand; sprawling stretch of sand and bursts of color from garments)
Devidasi (brings tray, shouts): Accept the offerings to the Goddess, the 5 ma-kaaras: wine, fish, meat, money and sex; maithuna, sex, the sacred dance of devidasis (dances, throws inflammable powder creating explosions of light to the fire) is the highest level of seeing, where pure light is felt.
Devi: Possessed women, open up for me. (to herself) Come on, get into it. (takes quick deep breaths, her neck swells up, the veins stand out; she expels the air through the nose in explosive bursts, each with an eerie sound between a bark and a yowl; her head and torso shake)
Sita (whispers in awe): Now the goddess "mounts" her!
Devi (reads the eyes of each patient in the circle): In the earth, no. Gold and silver, no. In fire, yes. She is afraid. No peace. God, you are not blind, I am. Bathe in milk, God, and grind the disease into dust. (patients go from mild trembling to frenzied rolling and thrashing) Rotate your head and breathe deeply; we're now in trance. (Devi's fine tremor of head and limbs inspires gross convulsive jerks by the patients) In possession the patient is blameless. Relax. The demons open your eyes. Don't fight them. Let go. That's it. My eye touches you in the deepest part. You're great. Beautiful! (to herself): Now don't mess this up.
Rekha: Who is she talking to? Her guru?
Mita (in shock): Look at me! Look at me, am I not sick?
Mita (at Devi's look, her skirt catches in flames, runs toward Devi with her clothes on fire; screams): Help! help! 
Devi: I love a good threat to the flesh. (Mita wails in horror) Just take it off. Before it's too late sweetie. We burned the disease. I thought you wanted me to look at you.

Local1: The flame of the eye of Devi consumes her enemies!
Local2: Her eyes contain a spell so powerful that they enchant heaven and earth and bend the gods to her will.
Local3: They're ancient instruments of magic!
Local4: This is a lucky girl! She's embraced by holy flame. She's cleaned by it. Better than sati even!
Local5: Godmen like nudity. We never see our wives naked. I will not look at my wife naked under any circumstances. But if she comes here, Devi will undress her in public.
Local1: Behold her foot stepping on the cigarette, see the sexual energy she uses in cure.

Roma: God's eyes were as a flame of fire. Revelation 1:14.
Mita (practically nude, clutches Devi): Let go of me! Devi, don't let go of me! Hold me tight! (now composed, male voice) Shaitan has come; the enemy has come. Face the guru.
Devi: Satan looks after our welfare just as Gods do. It comes to rape you, you said. Women love fantasies of their own destruction!
Mita: Yes, oh, yes. Speak! How far will you try to go, boy? Speak to the guru, beast! Ah, you tremble!
Devi: Are you the one who rapes this girl and her mother in their sleep? Or are you the one they rape in your sleep? I see a jumble. Why you do that? Do you love them?
Mita (as man): No one can hide anything from you, all-seeing One! You caught me in the act! I pretend to torture them, but I have loved this girl from afar for centuries and I will kill anyone who gets in the way of her freedom!
Devi: That's lovely. Now unite with her, merge with her. Do not distress her. Give her your power and disappear in smoke like her mirrored skirt. From dust. To dust. Through fire. Will you walk as far as the womb? Are you coming? Mita, look at yourself. (points at her necklace) All of you! Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.
Mita (in exaltation) This pot of bangles, leaves, flowers and dust will be shaitan's new prison. (holds it, as flame that Devi's eyes light in it, rises) Satan burns! Heat cleans my limbs. Satan, your jaw will break, your teeth will break, your life will break. Perish and fall to the ground! Waste away! The eye of Devi destroyed you!
Patients (urgently): Catch him now! Don't let him go!
Mita: What can you do now? Ha! Little satanic jerk! We made no mistake. I was good and proper. He came like a cat. Now I take his strength, he takes my weakness.
Rekha: If you stay you'll be given piss to drink. From every direction, Devi's gods will come to grind you to dust.
Devi (puts her hand on Mita's head): The time is now. He's gone. You're the one who loves you now. You are the one who safeguards your freedom. (Mita makes a choking sound as if by a prearranged signal, both of them are suddenly still; their eyes lose their unfocused look and seem exhausted. The flame in the pot hisses) See the fear burn. Lie down and stretch out your legs. As wide and open as you can. Facing mine. That's right. Close your eyes. Now you're free. Let's heal the root of your pain. (She scats, holds her left hand above Mita's head, index finger pointing upward, her right hand sways inches above Mita's knees, reaches Mita's feet, makes a quick movement as if pulling something out through the toes and discarding it away; she repeats this jerky movement several times, from head and womb too; she supports Mita's shoulders. The other patients also lie prostate, their hands toward Devi, all around her, like her rays) I sense the blocks in you. How do you feel?
Mita: I feel my back kneaded by hands and a feather touch going up from the base of my spine.
Devi: That's where the kundalini rest. Dasi, Rekha, come, do as I do. (They massage her, make sweeping gestures over her)
Devidasi: Look at her left side. It is weak. See that block?
Rekha: Han, han. It'll be balanced now. Han! Han! Yes! Yes!
Devi: Forgiveness. You feel a cool breeze ruffle your hair? (Their hair moves, they nod) You drift into a forgotten pleasant sensation that slowly fills your body. It's nice to have our bodies fondled by strangers in a cherishing way.
Mita (trembles, her toes wriggle when Devi's hand is above them; she sees things, timid): I feel a sharp pain in my womb, now it's all in my womb, I see bright red explode. (All patients lie in her position with closed eyes, make sounds and gestures indicating their womb)
Devi: Good, that's the first chakra, the womb, young, sexual, grounded, emotional, red. The chakra clears as I simulate its clockwise rotation. I now give you my energy, I turn you on. (Devi smites the floor with her left hand every time she makes the pulling clockwise gesture) You're pure, you're light. I feel father; I see an old woman you hug who pushes you away. Pain! (pain in her voice)
Mita (cries, slowly): Acha, my father's mother when I was 4, pushed me into a well. I broke my neck. Father said nothing. She hated me because I would take her place one day.
Devi: Repeat after me: I am angry at you! I don't want you inside me! Leave me! I am tired of fighting myself! (Mita mumbles ashamed) I can't hear you. Do you always smile when you are hurt? (Finally Mita shouts the words crying, shaking, shouts it again and again; then she's happy, transformed, her eyes glow unnaturally; same happens to all) Does your throat hurt? I feel the pain gathered here.
Mita (shy): I see a purple knot over my neck. Oh, it hurts!
Devi: Chakra five, the larynx, a lotus of 16 petals, smoky violet, ether, space; called Vishuddha, purification; feminine, intuition. Here you leave thought, religion, all behind. You're purged and there's nothing of the world between you and AUM. Hear the Silence. The animals stop dead in their tracks, the desert holds its breath. No word can say what this Silence tells that is all around and within you, that is resounding through all things.
Mita (in tears): I am happy. I am so happy.
Devi (quiet voice): Drink this. You look a different person; radiant. (tired; shiny perspiration on her face) You'll now enter a sleep of exhaustion and you'll wake in joy. I have beds in the center for this long deep free sleep?it's a unique experience. Any of you who feel relief, go to bed.
Mita (mutters): It felt like giving birth. (She and others have the same expression of lucid radiant boundless beauty and bliss also seen on xx victims)
Rikhu: She is realized!
Rekha (happy, to Mita): You must have frequented graveyards when you were a child, daughter. (to glowing Maya) What about you? Do you want to cross over?
Maya: I never thought I'd witness such a miracle! Thank you!
Devi: It's like going to a spa. Much cheaper. If the doors of perception were cleansed... Blake. Basic.
Maya: You are beyond good and evil—you're superwoman. Your gaze awakens the soul. (falls, grabs, kisses her feet madly)
Devi: The dissociation of the trance when another ego seems to take over is therapeutic; it breaks down her conditioning and increases her susceptibility to the new patterns I suggest; we shutter the rigid ego and build a new one; it's an initiation ritual. (Devidasi dresses her)
Rikhu: Put the left hand on your chakra and the right on Devi's photograph if your body bothers you. Her energy will be channeled where it is needed, to remove a catch.
Swami: Devi is an apsaraa, a nymph born from water; she has no human gravity, but an ethereal body made of clouds that rise from the river and dance in the light.
Rikhu: Every morning and night I kiss Devi's picture and feel her love support me. Devi is on her santmat, the path of saints—to remove suffering, to create peace and freedom.
Banadevi: Loving her makes me ecstatic; love is so good!
Maya: When she touches me, she kills my heart with joy.
5: A Perfect Master loves you more than you can ever love yourself and demands the highest love your heart can give.
Ramdulari: Devi must now purify herself from the demons. I love this part: the snake charmer's dance.
Devi (dances with transparent black veil over her head, whirls): The blood beats on. The fire unfurls. (Fire comes out of her fingers and hair, flames appear at the edges of her sari flowing behind, people from the crowd run with water or with their clothes to put it out, the regulars stop them, she laughs, whirls around fast till she turns into a flame left in her place, everyone sighs, looks for her, she's far away elsewhere, on the way to murder)
vo: Everyone wants me to make them happy. How normal am I? That is the suspense.
                               

                                

about Devi's Mirror