Strange ritual to appease Rain God

In a strange annual ritual, based on superstition, the residents of 36 villages in Shantipuram mandal left their houses at 6 a.m.

on Thursday to spend 24 hours at some water body or the other to please the Rain God to ‘bless their villages with copious rain’.

According to the villagers, their 24-hour prayers to the local deities on the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds or other water bodies will please the gods, especially the Rain God, and their villages would get plentiful rain. The villagers are following this ritual for the past couple of years to save the mandal and their villagers from getting parched.

Meanwhile, the ritual has kept the police in all the villages on tenterhooks.

 ‘’Police pickets have been posted at the water bodies to prevent any clashes among   the villagers camping there and also in the villages to prevent any house-breaks,’’ Kuppam police circle inspector S Rajagopal Reddy said here on thursday.