Bhekuli Biya: the Hindu practice of marrying two frogs to make it rain
So, people have this idea that a religious practice, especially those practised outside of Christian countries, is taken entirely literally.
The people who are doing them completely believe that what they’re doing will lead to a change in their surroundings since they’re communicating with their God. I wonder if those people also believe that people who leave milk and cookies out for Santa Claus genuinely think that Saint Nick himself will clamber down their chimney later that night? Or that swearing in a President of the United States of America without him placing his hand on a Bible negates the whole process?
I mean, a whole bunch of them probably believe that giving money to their church will get them into heaven, no matter what they do, something that goes against the entire point of the religion they claim to believe in. Thus, even if people do believe that traditions and religious practices are legitimately true, they at least have a better handle on their own religion than those who claim to believe in evangelical Christianity.
For the most part, they don’t. A practice, a tradition in the most literal sense, it’s something people do in order to feel in touch with their culture and their faith, rather than a genuine feeling of communing with their God. One of the more whimsical and creative versions of this comes from the Hindu practice of Bhekuli Biya that originated in the Indian state of Assam. One based on a poem that dates back to ancient times from the same area.
It’s a practice that aims to invoke rain does so via something truly wonderful. The marriage of two frogs!
How does this practice work?
This is also actually based on a real-life observation that the poem points out. In the story, some farmers question the clouds, wondering why they do not rain in the hot summer months. The clouds explain that if frogs don’t croak, no rain will come. Which is actually true. All over the world, heavy rain signifies the start of mating season for frogs, and rain doesn’t get much heavier than an Indian monsoon season.
Thus, when you hear the frogs start calling out to each other, that’s when you know rain’s coming. Thus, if the heavens are resolutely not opening, we get the practice of Bhekuli Biya, a marriage ceremony for two frogs that are then released into a nearby pond or stream. It’s a nice practice. It’s probably also a fun thing to do in a rural community that might be on the brink of a drought. In 2019, we saw a subversion of this, which would be hilarious if it didn’t come from a place of genuine tragedy.
In 2019, India was subjected to a late summer of intense rainstorms that led to catastrophic floods that killed 200 people and displaced nearly a million more. In Bhopal, the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a ceremony was conducted between two clay frogs, but, since they were trying to symbolically dissuade the rains from falling, this was the opposite. A frog divorce.
Hey, you’ve got to keep spirits up somehow, and I’d take that over clapping for the NHS over Covid.