The word Croaker here is certainly not a typo. When I say croaker I mean croaker. If you typ;e the word in a Word page you will see a pretty red line below it. Yep you probably won’t find it in any dictionary.. But You must have heard oif “Cracker of a wedding” The expression “cracker” means something more than a firework or something on which you lovingly place your cheese before making a meal of it. “Cracker” is often an expression of quality of lot of things, not just weddings. But what on earth is Croaker of a wedding.? A minister of Madhya Pradesh government organized a real croaker of a wedding recently..I mean it is a wedding between two croakers. Before you pull your hair let me explain croakers are those who croak. Well you will say everybody has to croak some day or other but no, it is not THAT croak, it has nothing to do with kicking the bucket. It is about frogs who are nature born croakers. As they keep croaking. Come again,? A wedding of frogs? Do frogs believe in the institution of marriage? Are they convinced that they had no moral right to bring tadpoles into the world without taking seven steps around the fire? Whether they believed it or not they were forced to go through the wedding ritulals because the good minister believed that forcing frogs to go through holy matrimony would bring rain. Hope the minister was careful in the selection of frogs. If both the bride and groom turnmed out to be males it would have become a gay marriage and I don’t know whether same sex marriages cause the skies to open up for a downpour. Even if it did that would be against the Indian culture ( the gay marriage not the downpour) that the party ruling the country and the abovementioned state claims to protect so zealously. Now, there is no Hindu wedding without the brief and the groom walk around the fire. And knowing the organisers’ political affiliations, I am sure they would jump before a speeding train than conduct a non-Hindu marriage to get rain. So our frogs must have walked oops sorry hopped around the fire. The poor chaps must have had a real touch time keeping them from jumping into the fire. Did the wedding feast include frogs’ favourite items, say flies? Or did the guests left the frogs to fend for themselves and gorged on goodies which probably had more than few flies hovering over them? In this monsoon season there is a good chance it would rain but the gullible would credit the newly wedded croaking couples for it. BTW one question is still nagging my mind. How did they train the male frog to tgie the mangalsutra?
Dear Balaji, In some villages in Andhra they do this wedding of frogs when rains are delayed. It is faith....no logic. But never heard Govt. or Ministers doing it! Syamala
As long as the wedding was simple @Balajee All kidding apart, I do hope government money was not spent on a lavish wedding to please the rain gods and feed the humans and money made by people who can make. BTW did it pour in MP?
Wow! I could not believe what I read. I have heard of dolls wedding, but not frogs! Really!! Anyways I enjoyed your article, as always.
Shyamala not only in Andhra, but frog weddings take place in West Bengal and why, Bangladesh in the belief it would bring rain. But not everywhere they are presided over by a minister.
I won't be surprised if government effort and funds were involved.In a country where a chief minister (of Telengana) wasted five croes of taxpayers' money in offering gold to my namesake in Tirupati anything is possible.
Kamala even I couldn't initially believe what I read . Then I learnt that it is quite a common practice in many states and even in Bangladesh
There was BBC news about donkey wedding ... BBC NEWS | South Asia | Donkey wedding staged to bring rain