KAKKA- THE CROW 1. Dear friends,
Forreasons not clearly known, crows rarely appear in my area nowadays. Seeing acrow, if I keep biscuit bits, it may eat two or three bits and fly away. Manytimes the remaining bits are partially eaten by ants. I hadposted earlier a lengthy posting about crows on 16-2-2011. This posting is withadditions and with alot of deletions of that posting. Sincerely, Gopalakrishnan 11-1-2022. 1. Feeding crow. The practiceof keeping a small quantity of fresh cooked rice in spatula and offering tocrows on the compound wall by about 11 AMhas stopped recently by my wife, because the crows do not appear to eat. I haveconfirmed it from my wife. Every daynight we keep a cup full of rice and morning it is offered to cows. If crowscome earlier they eat it now. Cows ate the remaining. In my boyhood days my latemother used to say- Riceto the size of a mango must be kept in all homes in the night, if at all the lady of the house is barren.It was given to cows next day. Probably on those days kids might have waked upin the night and asked for rice. Crows wakeup and used to sit near the compound wall in the morning before a few monthsago also. First thing done everyday morning is offering biscuit bits to crows. What a coincidence- Whilewriting this, I heard two crows cawing( by 3 PM) , immediately I offeredbiscuit bits on compound wall, one of them ate half of the pieces and flew away. The other sitting on a branchof tree, least bothered of biscuit bits. Probably it may not be hungry. Late eveningI found no biscuit bits. Some crows might have eaten them. While thecrows ate rice offered after cooking, I had never seen cawing more by thecrows. One or two times they will caw, if the special crows does not appear the others would leave without taking rice many a times. As anobserver this has made me to wonder. Many times the specific crows are biggerin size. They came, take one or two beak full; patiently the others waited, andthen took in their beak full and flown away. 2. Crow – the representation of Pithru. It is thegeneral concept among Hindus, that crows represent the pithrus. I think large crowsate while rice offered might be my lateelder brothers for whom no Gaya srardha is performed. I cannot substantiate this point,but the waiting of other crows ensures this. Probably the large crows may be appearingnow in their children’s homes. 3. Crows-Concept born in mind representing pithrus Probablyas I have seen during sraadha, from boyhooddays the belief crow represent pithrus is in- born in my mind. This is beforethe age I read books on this topic. Of late I think, since they representpithrus, they never come close to us. They keep small distance. (Lakshmana story- we should not keep attachment more.He had attachment with a deer and born as deer) It is very difficult to catch crow, put incage and bring it up like parrots. Decadesbefore I read in Kumudam magazine about a Muslim boy who brought up a crow. Itwas new information I read at that time. Decades ago one of the members inThatha Patti yahoo group wrote- In Bangalore Crows always remained near cityrailway station. It was very difficult to see a crow at other places. Rareinformation. 4. Crow - to eat pinda. Duringsraadha, we ensure the crows come and eat the pinda. Since pinda is a big ballof cooked rice, we also spread some rice. I recollectin my boyhood days, my mother asked me to locate whether crows were there in nearbytrees by the time pinda had to be offered,. Somehow for the cooking smell or for reasonsunknown, crows might be ready to eat pinda and rice offered. My late fatherused to say, when crow caws before offering of pindas-“Avarkku dhiruthiaayi”(Pithrus are in a hurry). I had seen a few times the crow taking the pinda immediately on keeping or from my father’s hands itself before keepingon the Tulasi matam. My father was slightly unrest on srardha days till it was accomplished. ( InKerala Tulasi matam is used to offer pinda or daily offering of cooked rice. In theevening my late mother cleaned before lighting Lamp there. It was/is never considered as patthu.) In placeslike Tutucorin, where crows have more sea foods we could see one or two crows just coming and taking a beakfull and flying away from the pinda. Sometimes no crow could be located. Sasthrikalsat Tutucorin would say- if crows are not taking pinda, do not wait for them. They would come and eat rice at their own time. Let bhokthas get up. However Ihad observed one thing-If at all 5 or 6 crows are there on trees, until some biggercrows come and touch the pinda, others did not come near Pinda. Today I think-Thosesat on trees and waited for Balikakka (large crowd) represented Jnatha- anjathapithrus. Whenever sraadha is performed, we referred Jnatha anjatha pithrus also. 5. Intelligent crow story in nutshell. Once acrow was very thirsty after eating some salty food item. It flew to find awater source to drink water. It couldfind no water body to quench the thirst.Suddenly it located a mud pot kept for cleaning with some water at bottom ofthe pot. The crow tried to put its beak and drink water. But water was at a lowlevel. It found some stones nearby. It carried them one by one in the beak and put in pot. Water came up. Crow drank water,quenched thirst and flew away. 5a No questions to the story. The crowcould have tilted the pot and drank the water easily. (Crows are experts in tilting).I am reserving river Kaveri story inanother part of this posting. 6. Malayalam sayings- There area few Malayalam sayings relating to crow. One is kakkaikkum than kunju ponkunju( Their children areprecious to everybody). Anotheris kakka kulichalkokkakumo ( By taking bath a crow cannot become a stork). Third oneis Echikai kondu kakkayaevirattila( A person who is somisery that he would not ward off a crow with the eating hand, in the fear, the bits of rice inhand would fall down!). Thefourth one is Vella kakka malarnnu parannu. (Impossible tohappen) . But I will be writing aboutwhite and blue crows in these postings later. 6 Kakka piduttham(Crow catching). I do notknow how the synonym originated, it means blindly supporting a person with an inner motive of getting somethingdone. It is also called sevapidikkuka in Malayalam. After his requirement was met, they may stop the blind support. I will continue in next posting -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1555288022.2888305.1641916803677%40mail.yahoo.com.
