ALAPPUZHA: The bird has a name, but seldom has anyone seen it.
And people in the rural areas here, especially in the Kuttanad and Thanneermukkom areas, do believe that it exists and brings death.
The bird, which is known by different names like ‘Koovakkadan’ and ‘Kollikoravan’, is believed to be a harbinger of death. Almost all the people in the rural areas here believe that if this bird cries somebody will die the next day in the nearby area.
However, ornithologists are not ready to agree with this opinion.
Ninety-year-old Bharathi, a native of Thanneermukkom, said that since her childhood she had been experiencing many things related to this bird.
“Whenever this bird, called ‘Koovakkadan’ in our village, cries, it is sure that somebody will die in our area. The bird comes and sits on a tree in front of our house at night and cries loudly, which creates fear in our minds. So, we firmly believe that the sound of this bird will bring bad omen to us. Though I am 90 now, I have not seen this bird till date”, she said.
Justin, a farmer in Kuttanad and a religious teacher, said that majority of the people in Kuttanad believed that the bird was a symbol of death .
“In this week too, I had an experience where a person from our area died in an accident a day after I heard the sound of this bird. Now many youths, including me, have recorded the sound of this bird on our mobile phones and are using it as the ring tone”, he said.
Twenty-five-year-old Salim Kumar and 40-year-old George said that though they were not ready to believe many of the superstitions existing in their village, they were not ready to ignore the beliefs related to this bird.
“Though earlier we had ignored the words of our elders about this bird, later through our own experiences we understood that their words were not wrong”, they said.
Victor, a houseboat operator in Alappuzha, said that even some foreigners firmly believed that this bird is a harbinger of death.
“Ingreed Barabour, a lady from Austria who lived in Alappuzha for three years, firmly believed that this bird will bring evil things to the people if it cries,” Victor said. However, Kerala State Bio-diversity chairman V S Vijayan, also an ornithologist, said that it was ‘fish owl’.
“It is a kind of owl that creates a loud sound. The belief of the people that fish owl is a harbinger of death is baseless. The bird is very common in all the parts of the State,” he said.