SPIRITS OF THE DEAD: Vidya Balan plays a possessed girl in Bhool Bhulaiyaa

Sushmita’s grandparents thought their dead son was back, though in the body of the 14-year-old Calcutta girl. She, they insisted, was possessed by the spirit of her late uncle. Sushmita would speak in his voice, and ask for his favourite food. Since he was the much loved eldest son in the joint family, her grandparents lavished Sushmita with attention.

Psychiatrists don’t agree with Sushmita’s grandparents. She, they say, is a typical case of dissociative identity disorder — which sees a single identity get split into multiple ones — which is most visible during times of stress. What ordinary people refer to as being “possessed” is more often than not a mental disorder.

A normally calm person could get abusive, go into a trance, fall unconscious or speak in a different voice or an unfamiliar tongue — and have no memory of it later. But psychiatrists often find deep-rooted reasons for this kind of behaviour.

Dr C.R. Chandrashekhar, professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, who has studied cases of “possession”, recalls one patient. A girl who knew and spoke only Kannada would start speaking Tamil when she was “possessed”. During therapy it was revealed that as a child of two, her family had Tamil-speaking neighbours.

It’s a disorder that has been around for quite a while — and is becoming more visible. That became evident last year when the Archdiocese of Mumbai, on an expressed need from the congregation, began working closely with five teams in the city — headed by lay people — and trained by the Church’s internationally renowned exorcist, Rufus Pereira, a Mumbai priest.

“Most of these are psychological cases,” agrees Mumbai’s bishop, Agnelo Gracias. “Catholics are very preoccupied with the devil,” says the good humoured bishop. “They think the devil is as powerful as God. But he is like a chained dog — unless you come near him he cannot do anything.”

If “possession” is indeed an ailment, it’s seen in most parts of India. In Mumbai, psychiatrist Ruksheda Sayeda says 70 per cent of her patients who come from middle and lower socio economic strata claim to have been “possessed” at some time. Most of them are women, which, Dr Chandrashekhar says, is not unusual.“Women tend to repress their feelings,” he reasons. Repressed feelings, psychiatrists stress, find a vent when a person is going through extreme stress.

What’s evident is there are different facets of the disorder. Instances of people feigning the illness aren’t uncommon either. For 23-year-old Jhumur, being “possessed” by Kali was a way of getting to keep her much older husband out of her bed. Married at 17 and pregnant at 19, she wanted to put off having a second child. So at night, she’d assume the role of Kali, ordering her husband out in a commanding and dishevelled state.

“When you vocalise your thoughts as a goddess, people around are bound to pay more attention and respect — they touch your feet, your mother-in-law respects you more, and your husband stays by your side,” says Calcutta psychiatrist J.R. Ram.

People find different ways of dealing with the situation. Many approach local quacks, and some seek help from priests. “The psychiatrist is the last resort,” rues Belinda Viegas, a psychiatrist in Goa, whose recently published book The Cry of the Kingfisher encompasses neurosis and personality disorders in the Goan diaspora in East Africa, Germany as well as in Goa. “Often, even after getting better, patients still hold on to the belief that they were possessed,” she adds.

Dr Ram points out that during the framing of a national health plan in 1990, there was even talk of recruiting shamans as barefoot mental health professionals to identify serious mental illness and treat what they could handle by themselves.

Even two decades later, people continue to repose faith in alternative healers. Many of Dr Ram’s referrals, for instance, come from quacks and astrologers. “When their stones don’t work, they send the patient to me,” he says.

Dr C.J. John, chief psychiatrist at the Medical Trust Hospital, Kochi, is sceptical about the cases of “possession” witnessed in the temple towns in and around Kerala. “The sprit has no hand in these custom-scripted expressions of religious pursuits,” says Dr John. Dr Sayeda does not give the spirit theory any credence either, for lack of any “frank” evidence. “But people have the choice and right to their belief,” she says.

While the church would recommend counselling, prayer and the administering of sacraments to heal its afflicted, it is only rarely that a bishop will authorise an exorcism.

The church is also picky when it comes to selecting priests to perform the rite of exorcism. “A priest performing exorcism has to fortify himself with prayer and fasting and his life must be above board,” says Bishop Agnelo.

Dr Sayeda advises her patient along similar lines. “I ask them to pray for healing, instead of allowing them to dwell on black magic and spirits that have caused them to suffer, as it only leads them deeper into it.”

But for many of those “possessed” there is nothing to cure. For someone like Jhumur, it’s a way of life.