Didn't find it?
RSS feed from Feedburner

 Subscribe to this Blog ?

 

Sundar Narayanan's Travelog

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 

Just another spider on the web
Squarespace
Powered by Squarespace
Archives
Blog Index
The journal that this archive was targeting has been deleted. Please update your configuration.
Navigation
« Great grandma visits and binge eating.. | Main | Destiny..elephants.. memories.. »
Friday
Jul052019

Ancestor feeding.. 

One thing I always look forward to in Chennai is feeding the crows before we start eating. It is not enough to put the food out on the ledge.. you call out to them and wait to see them eat and then you eat.

The crows are considered as the spirit of our ancestors.. or so they tell me. Given my ancestors were all vegetarian and these crows aren't I would not take it literally. It is a beautiful concept though.. keep the scavenger birds around you well fed.. 

All said and done, I am happy we are still feeding crows. 

you can hear a bunch of kids talking in an American accent in the background.. this custom is definitely lost in our family after the current generation.

There are a lot of traditions. If we go into why they were setup and adapt them to today, there is no problem in accepting the simplicity of it or beauty of it. The issue is taking it literally and going all or nothing on these customs. 

There were lots of philosophical debates on customs, traditions in 48 hours spent in last trip than all previous trips put together. We kept it short and sweet. These discussions never end well for anyone. 

The crows are dwindling given the hot weather and water scarcity. Based on my limited sampling that is the conclusion. Not sure if the bird statisticians concur. Hope these crows migrate to another area and where they do, they find people who treat them as their ancestors and feed them every morning. 

They are on time, every time! 

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>