Story of FAITH - Alcohol and Dharmastala

After my previous strory on FAITH, here comes another one.

Dharmastala is a very sacred place for the people of the coastal region in Karnataka. The deity is supposed be very powerful. Family disputes are resolved in this place by the Dharmadhikari - Dr Veerendra Heggade. Land disputes get solved. People do not lie in front of the Dharmadhikari, fearing the wrath of the diety. It is also belived that stealing in this place would result in something bad for the family. This is the FAITH in the deity.

Few words about Dr Veerendra Heggade
Dr Veerendra Heggade needs no introduction to the people of Karnataka. He is the head of the Dharmastala khsetra. He is a non-polical person with immense intention to serve the society. You can read about how he has served the society by just googling him.

Alcohol is a pain in the development of rural India. Many farmers,factory workers, fishermen of my native village are addicted to drinking. Some quit drinking for some days, but hit the bottle when money comes in their pocket. Ladies and gentlemen together drink the cheap arrack. There was an earlier instance when I had heard that the farm workers quit alcohol. But that was temporary. With increased wages and govt rural employment schemes, money is being flooded into the bars.

My grandma's maid servant's family was adversely affected by alcohol. Maid's son hit the bottle full-time when he started earning. He stopped giving money to the family. His wife started working. He stole from his wife all the jewelery and spent it on the bottle. He started beating his wife and mother for money. A tragic incident occurred with his wife when she was pregnant. Wife was injured in one of the thrashing evenings. They lost the baby (not entirely because of the injury though). He realized the pains of alcohol. He tried to quit. But friends and money dragged him back to the bar.

One fine day he decided to attend one of "Quit alcohol camps" organized by Dr Heggade's trust. He also coaxed some of his drunkard friends to join this camp. Dr Heggade has been organizing such camps all over the Udupi, Mangalore, Dakshina Kannada, Shivamogga region since sometime. One such camp was held closer my place, Kundapura. The 11 day camp is free of cost. The mentors explain them the harmful health\social aspects alcohol. They also bring in real life tragedy stories from the participants\ex-participants. Doctors give lectures. Free food is served for the participants during the camp. Basically its targeted at the rural poor.

But you would say all this is common across every "quit alcohol camps" organized by other associations. Yes, you are correct. People may hit the bottle after such camps. Yes, you are also correct of this.

But what if you bring in the FAITH aspect. At the end of the camp, the participants are brought in front of the deity and asked to promise that they would never again drink alcohol. All the friends of this guy and this guy himself have quit drinking. Since 3 yrs.

As long as FAITH is doing no harm, just have FAITH.
 
Some may call it fear...

Story of FAITH - Cobra and Peacock

My native village has some very unique practices. 

Once such practice and its significance is the basis for this story.

People of all castes in Udupi\Kundapur region revere the Cobra as a God snake. If the snake is spotted (which is not rare) nobody would hit it or try to kill it. It is mostly true for the other snakes as well. But Cobra is special. They call it DevaraHavu(ದೇವರ ಹಾವು) or "Naga deva" (ನಾಗದೇವ) (Meaning the God snake).

Yes, the Cobra is God. There are temples with lots of stones on which the cobra head is carved out. Pooja is performed everyday. Special ceremonies are organized to please the God-snake. Thousands are fed as part of these special ceremonies called NagaMandala (ನಾಗ-ಮಂಡಲ). This is an all night ceremony.

It is also believed that the Snake-God enters a human body (virtually) and provides solutions to the problems of individuals. The human is called as "Naga Patri" (ನಾಗದೇವರ ಪಾತ್ರಿ).  Special kind of flowers and music is associated with the God snake.

A piece of land is left vacant in the "Nagana nede" (ನಾಗನ ನಡೆ). It is a significantly large piece of land. (~5ft x ~ 300ft). This land is not dirtied or used for any human purposes, basically because it is the path of the snake. 

Death of a cobra is treated as the death of a human. The same set of ceremonies for 12 days is associated with the snake's death. It is a general practice that such ceremonies are performed by the person who first sees the dead snake. He\She needs to bear the cost.

If the snake is ill-treated in any way, it is believed that the person who ill-treated would incur the wrath of the snake God. So ignoring a dead cobra is believed to be a wrong thing to do.

All in all - the cobra is a feared and respected snake.

Since a couple of years my village has become home to peacocks. Lots of them are seen in the gardens, on top of coconut trees, on compound walls etc etc. They share space with humans. I am not sure what made my village special for the peacocks. I had not seen one during my summer vacations in my childhood. But looking at the number of them, I feel Govt should form some sort of "Peacock reserve" in the area. By law, our national bird is protected. Nobody should kill them. Killing them would result in severe punishment.

It seems that peacock is not just beautiful but also very tasty. The size means there is lot more meat in it than a cock. People would hunt down the bird and feed on them in secret. Law just couldn’t prevent the killing of our national bird.

Peacock feeds on snakes. It happened that one of the hunted peacocks had just fed upon a cobra. When the peacock was cut open, the dead God snake was seen by the family. They feared. They also had to perform the last rites of the snake. They spread the word that peacocks feed on God snakes.

This suddenly created panic wave. Was it fear of eating a God slayer? Was it fear of additional expenditure of last rites? Or...

Whatever be the reason, now nobody kills peacocks to eat there.

What law could not achieve was achieved by FAITH! 

View more peacock photos from village here