Rajasthan ritual: Sinking cotton signals good rains
group of elderly people sits cloistered in a room at Balotra town in the desert of western Rajasthan, performing a ritual that has been practised for centuries to predict rainfall.
Two bowls of water are kept for the ritual. Cotton pieces, one white and the other black, are put into the bowls to float. After some time, the white piece sinks. The ritual is: if the white cotton sinks first, it signals a good monsoon.
On Wednesday, which was a night of no moon, the ritual was performed in several villages of the desert district of Barmer. And the result was the same everywhere – the white cotton piece sank first and people rejoiced in hope of a good monsoon.
The ritual has a second part. Four unbaked earthen pots named after the months of Hindu calendar – Aashadh, Srawan, Bhadra and Ashvin – are filled with water. The pot that breaks first means the month it is named after will have good rainfall.
This time, the pot named Bhadra broke first, meaning that Barmer will have a good rainfall in end of August.
The Hindu calendar is based on lunar phases and begins around the mid of Gregorian months. Aashadh begins in June, Srawan in July, Bhadra in August and Ashvin in September. Ramesh Panwar of Balotra said the ritual is performed on the day which will have no moon at night in the month of Vaishakh, which began on April 21.
“We have been using these rituals to predict rain or drought in the area,” he added.
Kumparan Mali, who was part of the ritual in Balotra on Wednesday, said the weather forecast by the meteorological department may or may not be correct but forecast by these rituals is never wrong.
He said the ritual predicted average monsoon in 2016 and good rainfall the previous year. “You can check if our prediction was right or wrong,” he said boastfully.
Barmer experienced an average monsoon last year and a good rainfall the year before.