When Dizzy was between two major incarnations, she decided to be a wandering ascetic for a while. She roamed the streets of Delhi when Muhammad Tughalak had decided to move his capital to Aurangabad.

I, of course, was the scribe, the one who walked behind her copying all her divine uttering in flower Farsi. And asking silly questions to rile her up. Riling her up is part of my job. I would ask, my baldness hidden under the heavy turban: "Since you know everything, tell me how many hair do I have on my head?"

She would reply, calm as ever: "I have the knowledge and can tell you that. But do you have the power to verify it? But know this, there are as many satans inside as there are hair on your head." Which was quite gratifying, since I had no hair at all.

Being her scribe had its advantages, being born again and again with her in different roles, more numerous than have been played by Jack Nicholson. It had its pluses and its minuses. Sometimes she frustrated me, sometimes she got philanthropic and gave you more than you asked.

Like the time when she was Mary Antoinette of France. She relished the role, took great pleasure in meting out cruel and unusual punishments on her victims. She wouldn't let me do it. Not even when I wanted to hang that guy there who was destined to be born as Salman Rushdie by the balls. Or that seedy man there who was going to be born again later as George W Bush. She did it herself. I got so upset that I smeared cobra venom on my lips and kissed her. Needless to say she didn't die.

As Mary Antoinette, she planned to eradicate poverty from the face this earth. She did it partly by eradicating the poor.

When she was Cleopatra, she wanted some diet that could help her lose some of the fat on her thighs.

The royal physician, after a couple of sleepless nights, told her to take one cup of milk in the morning, one in the afternoon and one at night. She looked at the physician for a while, contemplating if she should have his head chopped off or tie him to Caesar's chariot and drag him along till he died. She at last thought she might as well try the diet first and asked, "Is that cup of milk after or before food?"

Or when she was born - a woman as she always was - but dressed herself as a man and called herself Vatsayana. Go figure, could a man have written a treatise on sex so conclusively. I travelled with her, peeping into houses and hiding under beds. Together we were the best peeping-tom team ever. We did what Kinsey could only fantasize about.

Back to when she was a wandering ascetic.

Now, once in a while, someone outdid me in silliness. But there were many who came, asking for help in matters dreary.

A man came up to her, folded palms and asked her advice: "O Holy One, I have been poor for ages, whatever I do turns to dust. I have just a small house, one room really, and with a wife and three children, it is a hell hole. I want more money, I want a bigger house."

And the Dizzy did not even ponder on the question. She never pondered, she uttered ex tempore, the end of a question signified the beginning of her answer.

"Buy some goats," she said.

I scribbled, looked at the puzzled man and shooed him off; another part of my job was to keep irritants off her back.

Now a few days later we went off to Agra where some djinns were creating havoc and the people needed her help. Since the Jamuna was such a fine river, and since the people of Agra were so nice to her, she decided to stay there a couple of years.

As fate would have it on our return to Delhi, the goatherd happened to be buying kangkong imported from Malaya at the vegetable market. He saw Dizzy and fell to her feet.

"I asked you for a remedy of saint, and you have laid a curse upon me. Now I have that same small house and with a wife, five children and thirty-two goats. Why have you thrown me into the deepest recesses of hell?"

No sooner had the question stopped that came the reply: "Now sell all your goats."

I shooed the groveling man away.

A few months later, we saw him again and this time Dizzy stopped him.

"How goes, man?"

The man fell to his knees, kissed the hem of her dress.

"Forgive me for doubting you O Holy One. The same house now feels like a palace after the goats were sold."

SHAKEEL ABEDI is primarily a writer, but works in stained and hot glass for a living. He likes to look at the mundane with a wacky squint in his eye. He has a small studio in Kluang where he works and teaches from. He can be contacted at shakeel.abedi@gmail.com .

Works of fiction in either English or Bahasa Melayu can be submitted to dina@malaysiakini.com .