Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line - Deepa Anappara Page 0,91
the djinns who read the letters that believers have written to them, they are the good djinns Allah-Ta’ala shaped out of smokeless fire to serve us. They are saints.
Look now at the crowd thronging these grounds, flinging cubes of meat up into the sky for kites to catch, leaving foil bowls of milk for dogs on the odd chance that one of the kites or the dogs is a djinn in another form. These believers are from all faiths. It’s not just us Muslims, Faiz—you said that’s your name, right?—Faiz, see, here there are Hindus and Sikhs and Christians and maybe even Buddhists. They come here clutching the letters they have written to the djinns, and they will paste their petitions on the powdery walls. At night, when the gates are locked, and the ash-tips of joss sticks collapse to the ground, the djinns will read the letters scented with incense and flowers. They read fast, not like us. If they find your wish genuine, they will grant your request.
As caretakers of the djinns’ home, we have seen that happen many times. But don’t take our word for it. Over there by the champa tree, you will notice a grey-haired man barking orders at four boys carrying cauldrons of biryani. For years his daughter had a constant cough that no medicine could cure. He took her to government hospitals, to private hospitals that looked like five-star hotels, to a godwoman who lived in a hut by the Arabian Sea, and to a baba’s ashram high in the Himalayas. She was X-rayed and CT-scanned and MRI-ed. She wore rings with blue gems and green gems and purple gems for good health. Nothing helped. Then someone told them about this place and the father came here with a letter for the djinn-saints. He would have done anything for his daughter by then, pulled out all his teeth and tied them up in a satin cloth like pearls if that was what the djinns wanted.
His letter to the djinns was brief. Some people write pages listing their grievances, and they attach copies of birth certificates and marriage certificates and sales deeds of houses that are being divided, unequally and disagreeably, between brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts. The father, however, just wrote: Please take pity on us and cure my daughter of her cough. He showed the letter to us, that’s how we know. He pinned a photo of his daughter from before to his letter, before the cough made a rattling skeleton out of her.
And now, see for yourself. The daughter is the girl in the green salwar-kameez standing by the champa. Her hair is covered fully with a scarf so as not to tempt the djinns—even the good djinns have a weakness for beautiful girls, we will be honest with you—but doesn’t she look well? There’s color in her cheeks, strength in her bones, not a bend in her spine, and her cough is gone. She’s getting married next month. The father is thanking the djinns by feeding biryani to visitors.
You have done the right thing by coming here. Now you must go inside, join your ammi and your brother. It’s darker there, certainly. The curls of smoke from joss sticks and candles have stained the walls black. We won’t lie, you will encounter fearful sights: a woman shivering, madness spouting from her lips, brought here by her husband who hopes our good djinns will expel the bad djinn that resides in her; a young man bashing his forehead against the wall until blood furrows his skin; and bats that hang upside down from collapsed roofs, their screeches a chorus to the frantic prayers of the distraught.
But listen, listen, our djinn-saints are powerful. Your ammi’s letter will tell the djinns what your family wants: good marks for you in your next exam, a suitable bride for your brother, the safe return of a missing cousin or a friend. Perhaps—and we are not saying this is the case with you—you hope to secure justice for your father or someone in your family who has been unfairly targeted by the police or the court. Don’t look so surprised. It happens to us Muslims more often than you can imagine. But whatever bad air hovers around you, trust us, the djinns will make it vanish.
We will tell you a secret: by the smoothest roads in this country, lined by amaltas and jamun trees, live politicians who became Union ministers only