Exorcising a transformer’s demons

The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. Carl Sagan.

In the year 1973, when I was barely out of college, the talk of the town was a movie called The Exorcist, based on William Peter Blatty’s magnum opus novel of the same name and directed by William Friedkin. A Hollywood production, it was dubbed a supernatural horror film boasting a cast that included the likes of the admirable Max von Sydow and Ellen Burstyn. Not to mention the young Linda Blair, who is possessed of a demon she is unable to rid herself of. To this day, I have no idea why I went to see this hair-raising, blood-curdling, stomach-churning film. I guess it was one of those things we did those days. A kind of herd mentality. Everyone else is going, so must I. Why did I not like The Exorcist, I hear you ask. For one thing, there were too many vomiting scenes for my refined taste. Allow me to explain.

Every time the young protagonist of the film felt the dreaded demon acting up inside her, she would start puking all over the place and generally behaving like a raving lunatic. She was possessed, yes, but that did not make for pleasant watching. While her mother and some priestly type tried to help her out, waving a wooden cross at her and chanting incantations, she (or her demon) was having none of it, throwing up – wave after heaving wave. The Alien had the same effect on me several years later, only there the monster ripped itself out of the victims’ innards. In plain sight, as it were, leaving little to the imagination. Getting back to The Exorcist, by now I was feeling awfully queasy myself, and rushed to the cinema’s toilets, only to discover that it was already full of grown men hawking and retching their guts out. There was nothing for it but to run out of the hall and bring up my lunch on to the pavement, much to a passing stray dog’s annoyance. Fussy pooch. Nauseating would be an apposite word to describe The Exorcist, though it has been hailed as an artistic triumph. One can never account for taste, I guess. Many countries banned the film on grounds of depicting untold horror associated with demonic possession. India was quick to ban it but not before it was screened for a few days when some of us managed to catch it. Couldn’t sleep for a few nights after that for running frequently to the loo, but the feeling passed. Incidentally, a short film titled Sartre’s Nausea, based loosely on Jean Paul Sartre’s famous novel was produced in 1962. Just as well I did not see it.

This column was not intended to be a quick review of The Exorcist, 50 years after its release. However, I felt it was a good way to introduce the subject of demonic possession in the light of a typically absurd story I came across in my esteemed daily newspaper a few days ago. Now here is what happened. Somewhere in the boondocks in the state of Bihar where power outages are a commonplace, the local villagers swore blind that one of their transformers, probably the only one, which was in the habit of tripping and catching fire frequently leaving the community in total darkness, was haunted. Having thus convinced themselves, it was the work of a moment for the village chieftains to approach an exorcist, one who was wise to the ways of demons and devils unknown and unseen. Our rural folk place immense faith in sorcery and witchcraft when it comes to battling ghosts and phantasms. What followed was something that could have attracted the attention of India’s film industry.

The village exorcist, most likely a charlatan, duly arrived covered in sacred ash and clad in vermilion, accompanied by a bevy of dancers and local percussionists who drummed feverishly away vaguely at the transformer. Mantras were chanted while the exorcist and his aides danced the night away, trying desperately to get the reluctant equipment to respond. Doubtless aided and abetted by the finest, illicit local hooch, invocations were petitioned with incense sticks but no dice from the object of their prayers. If an animal sacrifice was performed as part of the propitiation, that has not been reported, though I would not rule it out.

The recalcitrant transformer, however, hid its secrets well and flatly refused to cooperate. The demon slept soundly inside the bowels of the giant transformer, biding its time. Frankly, I would refuse to play ball if a bunch of loonies, claiming to be sorcerers or exorcists kept leaping up and down in front of me, mouthing all manner of unintelligible nothings, keeping the entire neighbourhood awake. To be fair to the villagers, it appears their attempts to engage a local electrical or mechanical expert to deal with the problem did not yield the desired result. Evidently the man told the villagers that this transformer was beyond repair (and hope) and that it was probably haunted by an evil spirit. ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,’ as Dante warned in The Divine Comedy. Only the villagers were not laughing. Who can blame them if they decided to fall back on their tried and tested method of summoning the exorcist?

Whether the local black magic man ever had the opportunity to view The Exorcist or not, I cannot say with any degree of certainty. That possibility cannot be pooh-poohed away in these days of the internet and YouTube. I only raise this point as being somewhat pertinent, because the village transformer was heard making strange, belching type of noises in the dead of night accompanied by sparks of flashing lights. Some saw this as the transformer’s way of communicating to the local denizens that it was sick to its stomach and was attempting to bring out the evil spirit by making these retching sounds. We know this to be credible thanks to the Linda Blair character’s shenanigans in the much-quoted film.

At this point one is well poised to pop the question as to why the local electricity board was not consulted in the matter. Apparently, there were many reasons for this including the fact that the nearest office of the nobs who run these matters in this remote village was several miles away and the villagers reposed greater faith in, well, faith healers. That may or may not have been true, but when the local scribes finally managed to reach out to them, the electricity officials were understandably dismissive of the entire affair. ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ proclaimed the official. In the native lingo, of course. ‘Probably the result of a short-circuit, faulty connection or an overload. Happens all the time.’ Very dismissive he was, accusing the wide-eyed local yokels of being needlessly alarmist and attempting to create a sensation amongst the gullible village folk. He promised to have the matter looked into soonest. The reports did not provide the reader with a happy ending to the story. We do not know if any qualified electrical or mechanical engineer visited the site to set right the transformer’s strange, undiagnosed malaise. We will have to let sleeping transformers lie.

What I can tell you is that here in urban Bangalore a few days ago, at the witching hour when the city was fast asleep, we were rudely awakened by a loud bang, a long hiss and several sparks flying all over the place. It was the transformer that serviced our apartment block! We had no power for the rest of the night. Happily, the electricity board people put things right by the time dawn had well and truly broken, but just for a moment there…

 One final word of advice. If anyone invites you to an evening at home promising beer and popcorn to watch the new and improved version of The Exorcist on Blu-ray DVD, decline. It may be new and improved with more vivid colours but it will still be sickening, in more ways than one. You are probably better off paying obeisance to your transformer and performing a special puja.