Thursday, October 6, 2011

Sighting a ‘Pala Pitta’ bird on the occasion of Dasara Festival is considered auspicious.

Today is Dasara Festival. Since ancient times sighting ‘Pala Pitta’ bird, an ‘Indian Roller’ also known as the ‘Blue Jay’; on the day of Dasara Festival is considered to be very auspicious and a good omen. The bird is very beautiful as you can see in the above pictures and it is a very popular bird in India. It is the “State Bird” of four States that is Telangana, Karnataka, Orissa and Bihar.

As it has become difficult to see the bird in recent times and impossible to find it in the cities, some people from the villages used to catch these birds and roam around the towns and cities on Dasara Day showing them to people for money. However, since a few years, this practice has been banned, but still, a few villagers were bringing the birds into the city secretly and carrying out their business. Call it tradition or superstition, we also believe in seeing ‘Pala Pitta’, today, though it is not possible nowadays even in the wilderness. The attached pictures are from a long time back when there were no restrictions. The bird you see in these pictures, we bought it from the villager and later took it far out of the city (a joy ride for us) and freed it amidst plenty of trees.

The pictures above are of my nephew, Dr. Sudheer, my son, Srikanth and my wife with the ‘Pala Pitta’ we set free. I am sure the ‘Pala Pitta’ is safe and happy even today. We were very happy to see the bird flying away, the villager who gave it to us was indeed happy, and I hope all of you who care for the bird are also happy and will not find fault with what we have done.

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2 comments:

  1. the state bird is in extinct awareness should be created to hold the glory of telugu people

    ReplyDelete

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