Layout 3 - India Foundation for the Arts - IFA

when a member of your family is
suffering from depression or ‘madness’,
or when you wish to ward off black
magic and evil that has been thrust
upon your family. Sometimes you take
on a vow and if the vow is granted, you
thank Allah by organising a feast and a
chanting of the name of the Prophet.
But you also have, following that, a
performance in which two chairs are
Wayang Kulit – Eddin Khoo
put right in front of the stage, and
nobody can occupy them because they
are meant for the celestial beings
Ravana and his clan. The performance
becomes therapeutic when a patient is
somehow inspired or brought back into
his own sense of self through a
particular episode that especially stirs
his memory. This often leads to a state
of trance in which the patient with the
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The Jin, one the emissaries of the Maharaja Wana (Ravana),
brings a message to the dayang (ladies-in-waiting) of Sita Dewi.