The Byte: Raja Sahota
Raja has a special friend. When he was a child he wandered off into the woods in India and found himself in front of a decaying mansion. Listen in on what Raja unexpectedly brought home with him, and how it has changed his life. Please note: This track may include some explicit language.
Transcript
Hello there and welcome to another episode of Bite-sized Blessings.
This week I get to interview Raja Sohota and his story is an interesting one.
After graduating from high school in India,
He worked a variety of jobs until truly finding the one that made his heart happy.
And that was to go into these remote villages in India and kind of become a mentor,
A teacher,
And a leader for both the kids and the adults in the area.
This work is what defines him and still what calls him.
And so even though he's in Sonoma now in California,
He has all the intentions in the world of going back to India and resuming this incredible and important work.
This episode does come with a trigger warning.
Raja talks about when he was a kid,
They were at a vacation spot and he ran away from his family,
Went down a path into the woods and found himself in front of a decaying mansion,
One that had been abandoned there in the woods.
And unbeknownst to Raja,
He picked something up in that mansion.
And it's a really spooky story.
So for those of you who are sensitive or nervous about hearing this kind of story,
Please take care of yourself.
It does end up all right in the end,
But the story is a little bit of an alarming one.
And after saying all that,
It's time for the episode.
So episode 112 of Bite-Sized Blessings.
So I remember as a kid,
Before it happened,
We were in a place called Gandhinagar.
So there's this little river we play around and there's watermelons growing there.
It's awesome.
So we would go there in summer.
And I remember this little path going off and I run off into the path to explore.
And there's a mansion.
A mansion which has got these abandoned completely.
It has barbed wire around it not to go there.
And it has vultures sitting on it.
I still remember that.
Like haunted vultures.
And I went to explore it.
I've lost all memory after that.
I don't have a memory of how I came out,
What happened.
So I have two big stories amongst the little stories.
One is of my possession when I was eight years old.
And I don't think it got fixed.
I still remember having this person sitting on my chest and squeezing the life out of me every night.
It would start at night and it would finish as soon as the light came up.
And I remember this happening for almost a year.
Finally,
They tried to purify the house a couple of times by many different methods.
That thing was super powerful.
And I remember that.
And I remember that.
And I remember that.
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So that's one story.
And I don't know how it affected my life.
I was going to ask you,
You know,
When you were a kid and you saw this mansion,
I assume you crept through the barbed wire to get to it.
But you weren't scared of it,
Even though it looked strange?
I think I was being an idiot.
Like,
Most kids are like,
Oh,
I'm not scared.
To my sister,
Who was like,
Oh,
No,
No,
Do this,
Do that.
Like,
Yeah,
I'm doing it anyway.
Because I'll get to see something awesome.
And I did.
I got a nice little friend that lives with me probably.
I mean,
I would imagine as a child,
This whole experience was terrifying.
Yes.
No doubt about it.
I remember all that screaming and stuff.
And your family must have just been beside themselves.
Yeah,
My mom was really trying.
So she's Christian,
So she would do get her rosary out and pray all night.
And that's how it kind of stayed away.
But then she had these local exorcism people come in with the Hindu way and the blah,
Blah,
Blah.
I don't know what they did.
They were roaming around with lots of smoke everywhere and muttering all sorts of stuff and making me very uncomfortable all the time.
I mean,
It sounds like you had to actually travel to go find this kind of medicine man.
Yes,
One of those.
Yeah.
Yeah,
They excel in the black arts.
And they kind of keep them between the light and dark.
Right.
And so they kind of know where to send what happens.
Wow.
It's weird to find those people,
Which is probably why you had to travel so far.
And that kind of work is not easy nor fun.
Because,
You know,
I've interviewed many people on my podcast.
And certainly we've talked about,
You know,
Medicine work and healing work.
And,
You know,
When you engage with whatever you're engaging with,
That's inside the other person's body,
Whether it's a story or a little gremlin or whatever,
Trying to get rid of it.
A lot of times they say that that thing goes into themselves.
And so then they afterwards have to for several hours.
Get rid of that.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well,
Somehow it seems that you've made a sort of maybe uneasy peace with it.
Would you say that's true?
I think so.
And I think it kept me alive all these years to all that stuff that I've been through.
I'm the most scaredy cat of this world.
But when I'm in those situations,
I come out always on top.
I can't tell you.
I have had a crash at 110 miles an hour on a friggin highway.
I crashed.
I bounced off the asphalt.
I haven't broken a bone in my body in my life.
I have fallen out of planes.
I have been shot at.
I have been trampled,
Beaten,
Raped,
Everything in my life,
But not broken a single thing.
I don't know.
So it's like this really powerful and semi benevolent entity.
It sounds like it's protecting you now.
Second story actually ties in with this because it was in 1990.
Maybe I was younger.
Just after my stint in the army,
I got my job.
So I go,
I'm in Delhi.
My father is a full-on drunk.
He's a general in the Air Force,
Really high position,
But he's sloshed all day in his uniform.
I'm picking up on streets.
I'm fighting for him and getting back home.
And this fool,
One day I get sick.
I go on to work.
I didn't know I'd eaten something outside.
So apparently this is,
I found later,
I'd gotten typhoid.
So the fever was high up,
105,
106.
I didn't know that.
I come home,
I'm dying.
And my father's drunk.
And he's like,
He was leaving for my hometown.
And he said,
You better be ready tomorrow to go.
He didn't give a shit.
He left.
That's when I got typhoid.
So three days I was passed out in a house without food or water.
And I somehow dragged myself to a doctor who is a frigging quack.
And he says,
Because my eyes were bloodshot,
He said,
Oh,
You got the eye flu.
And he starts giving me drops for my eyes.
So another two days I'm dying there.
I have just a sip of water maybe in my,
I'm like,
Just lost my weight and everything.
So this is Delhi,
One side,
This is about 10 kilometers away from,
Maybe more,
From the bus station.
I know I'm going to,
If I have to live,
I have to somehow make it.
So like a hobo,
I'm walking across Delhi in my flip-flops,
Half-open shirt,
My soiled pants,
Like a beggar,
Right?
I walk across somehow to the bus station,
To the bus going to my hometown.
I pass out there for a couple of hours and the guy wakes me up.
What are you doing?
I said,
This is my scene and this is my name.
And he's like,
Shit,
You're dying.
He's a nice man.
He puts me in the back of the bus free of charge and drops me off at Jalandhar.
On the way,
He gave me two packets of juices.
That was so sweet.
He was trying to be nice and he didn't know what the hell was happening.
Anywho,
I reached there,
I got on a rickshaw,
Reached home,
And I collapsed in my house.
And that's when I remember waking up after about three days.
My mother said I was blue.
And she was shaking me.
I thought I was in the best,
Beautiful place in the world.
But I'm afraid of heights.
So I had to make this one step,
Just one step.
It was a little jump.
And it's so peaceful.
The feeling was,
I can't even describe it.
And then my mom freaking woke me up.
I was like,
Damn it.
So I believe I did pass over for a couple of hours.
And hence,
The world looks pretty bland.
Yeah,
I mean,
Once you have those experiences and you go to those places,
It's like,
How does this reality even compete?
There's no competition.
It's impossible.
It's impossible.
You cannot feel that love anywhere else.
Did I forget to mention that Raja also takes people on motorcycle tours through the Himalayan mountains?
What does he not do?
This man does everything.
I swear,
It is so hard to kind of distill down into one episode just what makes a human being who they are.
But I try.
I try in my own little way.
I need to thank Raja for telling me his stories and for also sharing this really vulnerable and personal story from when he was a child.
I need to thank the creators of the music used in this episode.
Winnie the Moog,
Henrit,
Music Elfiles,
Frank Schroeder,
Alexander Naccarata,
And Sasha End.
For complete attribution,
Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bitesizedblessings.
Com.
On the website,
You'll find links to books,
Music,
Changemakers,
And art I think will lighten and brighten your day.
Thank you for listening.
And here's my one request.
Be like Raja.
Find peace with your past.
Find peace with what haunts you,
No matter what it is.
Do the work,
Maybe get some therapy,
Maybe talk to a friend.
But find peace with those stories that you formerly used to define you.
Find peace with them,
And I guarantee,
I guarantee,
You'll be able to sleep better at night.
