People in different parts of the country are resorting to off-beat methods to propitiate the rain gods. In Indore, a live man's funeral was taken out on Wednesday. People in Indore use this method since the princely days when a Maharaja used to rule Indore.
In Rajkot, Gujarat, with all the 77 reservoirs in Rajkot circle about to hit rock bottom, a helpless Irrigation Department on Monday chose to seek divine intervention. All employees of the department attended a prayer sessuion organized by the Gayarti Parivar at Bahumali Bhavan on Race Course Road.
“There is hardly any rainfall and no fresh inflow. So, the department just decided to seek divine intervention,” said Superintendent Engineer P A Totlani.
Sources said special prayers were organised to worship Vayudev since it was the “high velocity wind delayed the monsoon in Gujarat”. “Going by the figures we collect daily from all the dams scattered across seven districts in Saurashtra, the picture is getting gloomier with by the day. Offering prayers is one of the ways to improve things,” said assistant engineer J C Kalaria.
Ahmedabad mayor Kanaji Thakore is expected to perform a prajanya-yagna in Madhavpura on Sunday, during which he will sit in a vessel full of water, and pray for rain.
Thakore will be joined by scores of citizens who are enduring fasts and making various vows to appease Gods in the hope that monsoon will soon offer relief to the city. Rains have been playing truant, especially in Ahmedabad and the whole of north Gujarat. In Laheripura area of the old city, Muslims and Hindus broke 51 coconuts to propitiate the rain gods.
Meteorological Department official Kamaljit Ray said that no rainfall was expected for the next three to four days. If a low pressure develops, city may get rains by July 3 or 4.
In Surat, worried over delayed rains, some citizens conducted a special yagna on Wednesday, to please the Rain God. A havan was also conducted, along with the yagna, to help end the dry phase in the city. The special yagna was organised at Bapa Sitaram Chowk at Katargam by the ladies wing of the Surat Vatalia Prajapati Samaj. Special rites and a havan were conducted as per Hindu rituals, to attract the clouds and usher in this year's monsoon.
In some villages of Uttar Pradesh, women plough the field at night without wearing a stitch of cloth to propitiate the rain gods.
In Orissa, people conduct weddings of frogs to keep the rain gods happy. They also carry out procession with frogs in pitchers.
A sluggish monsoon, 21 per cent deficient in the week ending June 23, has stalled mid-way and is unlikely to progress into India's grain bowl of Punjab, Haryana and UP before July 4, as agriculture ministry officials look on nervously, reports Hindustan Times.
Overall, between June 1 and now, the rainfall has been up to 13 per cent less, a weather official estimated.
The patchy rains have prompted the agriculture ministry to keep crop-rescue plans ready, with the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) say ing if rains don't return to normal around July 5, crops in north India could suffer.
The UPA government is hedging on adequate rains to offset losses from last year's drought -- the worst in three decades -- and also to curb food infla- tion of nearly 17 per cent.
Abnormal delay in rains for north India will start affecting mainly sugar and paddy crops, as UP is India's largest sugar- producing state and together with Punjab, Haryana and Bihar, accounts for bulk of rice output.
A weather review meeting has been called for July 5 by the top farm expert body. “Any delay beyond July 4 will certainly affect both crop out- put and cost of production for farmers,“ IARI scientist J.P.S.Dabbas told HT.
“(There is) a hiatus in the further advance of southwest mon- soon since June 19,“ A.B. Mazumdar, the Met department's deputy director-general, said in a report. This means the rain-bearing system has not progressed into newer areas, especially the northwest, a high farm-output region.
Summer rains are critical for India, Asia's third biggest economy, for two reasons: two-thirds of Indians depend on farm income and 60 per cent of farmed areas depend on rains for irrigation.
