Pakdokter was one of the many, among friends and family members, who gathered at the " No Black Tie" restaurant in downtown KL to celebrate Zaid Ibrahim's 60th birthday. Zaid was one of pakdokter's friends when we were in secondary school together at the STAR in Ipoh.
Zaid was once the patron and Chairman of an NGO involved in the promotion and preservation of some of the old cultural practices in Kelantan which were threatened to be sent into oblivion because of the religious edicts and pronouncements of the PAS government of Kelantan. And it was a fitting tribute to him that his 60th birthday party started of with a presentation of the " Main Puteri" - a traditional spiritual healing commonly practised in the past for the purpose of treating psychotic and depressive illness.
Accompanied by a band of folk musicians, the healer danced into a 'trance' during which state he was supposed to be able to 'exorcise' evil spirits which may have dwelled in the body of the psychotic or depressed client.
some guests from the floor were coaxed
(or became 'possessed'?) to join the healer in the dance....
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