This story was related to me by my mother during her younger days when she stayed in a kampung known as “Radin Mas”.

It goes like this :-

My mother lived in a small kampung house together with my grandparents and her eight other siblings. They were very poor. My grandfather was always sick, so was unable to work, and the burden of feeding the family was passed on to my grandmother.

To make ends meet, my grandma sold nasi lemak and assorted kuihs in front of her house every morning. And she will start preparing the nasi lemak and kuihs at 3 o’clock in the morning. And since my mother was the eldest daughter, it was her responsibility to help my grandma.

Well, on that cool nite, my mom was grinding the chillies (there were no blender at that time) and my grandma was making the dough for the kuih when they heard a knock on their kitchen door. My mom looked at my grandma who told her to stay put. It is believed that an evil spirit or pontianak can and will only knock twice on your door. Why? I do not know. And yes, the person only knocked twice and each time it knocked, it called out my grandma’s name. My grandma then walked to the door, banged on it and shouted for the thing to go away and not to disturb her family. There were groanings and then the scratching on the door started. By this time, the whole household was awake and all eight of them were huddled to one corner of the house.

The scratching stopped. A few minutes later, it started again but this time it was on the roof. And since it was a zinc roof, the sound was deafening. The pontianak started screaming and laughing that eerie laughter. My grandma recites some Quranic version and the pontianak started to pound and scratched on the front door.

My grandma opened up the door and flashed her bare body to the pontianak and my mother said that the pontianak screamed and flew away.

I’m not sure if it is true, but it is believed that if you bare your body to a pontianak, she will run away as she is ashamed of herself as she deemed herself imperfect. They say she has breasts too but it is at the back of her body. I don’t think that I would want to find out! Do you?