Where women rob,sacrifice animals to appease Rain God

Wearing a full-sleeve shirt belonging to her husband,dark goggles and armed with a pickaxe,Diwaliben Dabhi (60),one of the ‘dacoits’ sang ‘Maaro viro meghlo shu karva risayo’,even as some 2,000 village women joined in chorus. She said she has been performing the ritual every year since the time she can remember.

“We need rains to survive. God would listen to our prayers,” she said. She added: “We put cow dung around the Shiv Ling at the village temple,and after the ritual,we pour water over it. If the water moves westwards,it means that there won’t be any rains; if it goes eastwards,we will have rains soon.” And much to the delight of the villagers,the water moved east on Monday. “It will rain surely after four to five days,” said the villagers.

Nada village,which has a population of about 10,000,still swears by its ‘dacoits’ to steal cattle from the neighbouring villages and perform other daylong rituals that end with a sacrifice. This is done to please the Rain God every time a drought-like situation looms. This ritual is locally called dhaad.

Nada is still untouched by any government irrigation scheme. Sarpanch Ragitsinh Pagi says: “Nobody here knows about government irrigation schemes. We are completely dependent on the rains for farming,though we do get drinking water from the newly installed pipeline now.”

The ritual begins with village women congregating at the local wireless ground. The young ones dress up as men,while the elderly wear shirts and petticoats. They move quietly to the adjacent villages (this time it was Mota Bamna).

Any male member of the targeted village who happens to cross their path is beaten up by these women ‘dacoits’ (they now use lathis rather than sharp weapons,which they used once upon a time). “This is because we consider men kaal (bad omen) and their presence would affect our efforts to appease the Rain God,” explained Diwaliben,who was chosen to sacrifice a goat at the end of the ritual.

The herd of stolen cattle is later taken to the wireless ground where a group of women guard them and the rest sing and dance,pleading God to send rains soon.

Meanwhile,the villagers whose cattle were looted arrived and the elderly began bargaining with them to release the stolen cattle to their owners while chewing efan kasuma (a narcotic substance). It ended with the goat sacrifice.

On their part,the villagers said their ritual is a reminder to the government to start thinking about preventive measures.

“Where do we go if we don’t get help? We are totally dependent on farming for our livelihood,” said Ramila Nayak,another woman.

“The villages in this region are mainly into paddy,corn and tuver. We can’t even think about any other crop,” she added.