Krishnavarihaaram

1957,...june,.....Machilipatnam..

An old fisher woman, clad in a tattered sari that reached down only a little lower than her knees, was ambling through a wide enough street,...sucking on a peter"s pasand-----A kind of naatu variety mango-----with a middling sized basket,full of fish on her head....It was a predominantly brahmin street and one wondered what a fish vendor could have to do over there....But to make matters more fishy?..:)...an apparently brahmin family party came out on to the Arugulu of their house, clapped and beckoned the old hag to come near.....A small harangue over the price of the basket was amicably settled at an Arthana..--.3 paise--...and the basket of fish was now officially theirs...

A daughter of the house was pregnant with her first baby, and on this happy occasion, the patriarch was going to give away Krishnavarihaaram because it was deemed to be auspicious to feed fish to the Krishnavars---a species of eagles....well...not quite the usual kind of eagle ....It is brownish black in color and is called garuda pakshi in some places , as krishnavar around Bandar and as bolli gedda somewhere else.....Denizens of Bandar thought it was punyakaaryam to feed these with fish...more so when someone in the house is carrying.....The word which literally meant Krishnavar"s aaharam got corrupted and became krishnavarihaaram....

The old woman now set herself to the task of calling upon the flying gods....She spread the fish right in the middle of the road..------ a small heap of tiny fish sparkling in the sun ..They were no more than an inch or two in length and actually can be called as scrap..------ and looking upwards at the sky, simultaneously clapped and bellowed ...KRISHNaaaaaaaaaaa,Krishhnaaaa......The aaaaaaaaaaah went on endlessly.....A good many notes longer....Soon a speck of black appeared on the horizon and in minutes scores of the birds started circling the skies....Very probably, hidden in the high skies,they must have had an eye on the old woman all this time--their comrade-in--arms--,for they would not come in if anyone else called...

Then began what can only be called as an air show......As the beautiful birds swirled in through the high skies, dived in an elegant swoop one after another and zoomed out with their catch safe in between their talons----they do not pick up"em with beaks like other birds---, it reminded everybody of a ballet performance....(people of those days have not really seen republic day parade till then)....Such movements of precision.....They zoomed in from one end of the street, gracefully caught the fish and glided up through the other end, as kids and elders alike watched in enchantment....Ofcource, the kids were gleeful and pestered their parents to buy yet another basket.....

My aunts and uncles still recall those splendid performances with pleasure and one among them immediately rang me up when she heard i was writing about the place and insisted i must forthwith include the krishnavarihaaram in my blogs...The funniest thing , she said was watching the crows....As can be expected, at the sight of all that food on the middle of the road, crows (there were a great deal of them at Bandar)...swarmed on the scene, sat by the sidelines and set up such a cacophony that it was worth watching too...They wanted a share but were too afraid of their superior cousins and in a frustrated frenzy hopped here and there and broke into fights themselves....or made one or two feeble attempts to edge into the booty only to be ignominiously chased back to their place.....

My jellathayya breaks into a little smile as she recalls how as young women they worried that crows might take some and asked the old woman to shoo them away......It would not do, you know....Punyam accrues only when krishnavars eat the fish..... It was a comedy of errors,....an exercise in contradictions, she says...We were brahmins and contributing to jeevahimsa in the name of punyam...First the fish and next the crows....


Today we can not see any krishnavarihaarams at Bandar...It was all over...I,personally never saw one and i am as old as hills my self...May be these days krishnavars confine their presence to fishermen"s coves....