Efforts to please rain god start as monsoon delayed

 A delayed monsoon, the scorching heat and the fear that their crop would be ruined, have prompted people in rural areas in Uttar Pradesh to take recourse to superstitious ways to please Indra, the god of rains.

According to the reports, widows at a village in Moradabad district ploughed a dry field under the blistering sun, in their attempt to make the rain gods happy.

The women of Devapur village in the district said it was a tradition and they have been doing so for many years.

“We hope the rain gods will understand our plight and shower their blessings in the form of rains,” said a woman, who was part of the group that ploughed the field.

 While the widows ploughed the field, other women sang bhajans and other religious songs to please the gods. One woman said last year also they did the same and the region received good showers after that.

In other parts of the state also there have been reports that people, worried over the delayed monsoon, have organised weddings of frogs as they believed it pleases the rain gods.

‘Yajnas’ (rituals by fire) and special ‘pujas’ were also being performed in different areas for the rains, which have so far eluded the state.

Though the monsoon was expected to arrive in the state in mid-June, it was delayed. Now the Met office has said that there was possibility of its arrival in the first week of July. Agriculture experts have said that any further delay in the monsoon could have an adverse impact on crops.