Right wing politicians from around the world keep reiterating the fact that marriage is a union between "a man and woman". Wonder what they would make of the unique ritual, celebrated by hundreds of village folk, depicted in the video above?
The village of Rongdoi in Jorhat district of Assam has been facing a drought-like situation for the past few weeks. A heat wave and dust storm are especially affecting the paddy crop. So in accordance with a mythological belief in the area, the townsfolk arranged the wedding of two frogs in full Vedic rituals. A frog wedding is said to appease the rain god Barun.
One of the attendees of the event, Manoj Kumar Neog of Rongdoi village, told The New Indian Express, "People strongly believe that frog weddings cause rainfall. After the wedding in our village, dark clouds had enveloped our area, making us believe that it will rain heavily. Eventually, it rained though it didn’t last for long."
After the wedding is complete, the bride is taken to the groom's house in a decorated hand cart and both are let loose in a pond soon after. Perhaps after enjoying a few moments of marital bliss.
This doesn't seem to be a one-off occurrence, though. Nor is it restricted to a particular area in India.
In 2014, frogs were married off in Dibrugarh, Assam in a six-hour-long wedding ceremony that was attended by people from about four villages and also in Nagpur, Maharashtra. In Takhatpur, a town in the Bilaspur district of Chhatisgarh, a pair of the amphibians got hitched and were also reported to have shared a "wet kiss". In 2009, around 3,000 villagers attended the wedding ceremony of frogs named Ram and Sita in Madhya Baragari village in West Bengal.
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