The character

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

For three days, I stood firm—convinced by my inner deity to protect myself and choose what’s right. I burned the first name that rose in my mind. She—the sorcerer who burned my vaniga that very night. I awoke instantly and began the ritual, casting her and her kin into the fire, for they, too, were steeped in sorcery and black magic.

The apple never falls far from the tree. Just as Isaac Newton dreamed under the apple tree and discovered gravity, so too do generations inherit their unseen powers. The sorcerer weeps to her kin, thanking the heavens that Puvesneswary Vithlingam has left for Kuala Lumpur—yet she herself cloaks her black magic in charity, fooling many. But I see through it. Like mother, like daughter.

Religion, too, wears masks. The church birthed a new order, and John Smyth, an English minister, established the first Baptist church in Amsterdam in 1609. Paul’s words urged slaves to obey their masters, much like women were told to submit to their husbands. Leadership was not meant for women under man-made doctrine.

I asked myself: Why is this happening to me? Why this restlessness, this searching? What within me seeks to uncover these truths? I turned to the mantras—again and again—until they pulsed through me like breath.

Then came the Diesel Man, unsettled by his father’s fate. But I asked him, “Weren’t you the one who trapped your father in the house for games of black magic? Why dress now as a holy man? Who are you trying to convince?” I spoke gently, “I prayed your father into peace because he witnessed how cruelly you treated me. I set him free. You should be grateful. The home I cleansed is ready to begin anew. May peace be with you.”

And just like that—he disappeared.

Then came another presence—from the single-storey house. A girl, once institutionalized, now recently released. She too had cast a shadow on me. I asked, “Why return? Did you not slander my name to every friend, every contact online? Didn’t your mother confiscate your phone after those late-night calls? Speak your truth, and release us both.” And she, too, vanished.

I kept burning every name that robbed my peace. The fire roared, and from me poured cough and flame—through nose, through mouth. I will not stop until I am whole. Until I can sit with my breath and meditate, wrapped in stillness.

Four days later, as I walked my father to the hospital, we crossed paths with a black Benz. There she was—the sorcerer—with her new husband, white-bearded, was at driving wheel. She opens the car door, shuts the door and sat inside. She too never expect to see me. In that moment, the deity showed me: the one I always suspected was indeed her.

My father’s leg had swollen. But I knew—divinity is working. I will continue my mantras. My inner deity has more to reveal.