Mushrooms …..beautiful !

The below mushrooms are I found in jungles of south Orissa during my trek.

coffee color wild mushroom.

White lily mushroom.

Lily mushrooms.

Beautiful white lily mushroom.

Red apple mushroom.

Red apple mushroom.



Common edible mushroom.

Poverty, illiteracy and superstition… who cares?

Today I was reading newspaper; two local news’s caught my attention. The news was like …

One - “BLIND BELIEF LEADS TO HORRIBLE CRIME” Sister ‘sacrificed ‘ for getting wealth. In Mayurbhanj district, a man sacrificed his sister to get mental peace and wealth. According to the accused, he killed a snake two days before of the incident and in his sleep the snake god appeared and cursed him on his sin and as a remedy directed him to sacrifice one of his family member. Therefore, he planned to sacrifice his sister and he chopped off her head with a sharp weapon during her sleep.

Second – “WITCHCRAFT SUSPECTED” Woman branded with hot iron. This incident also in same Mayurbhanj district. Hear the villain is a rich man, who suspects  an elderly poor women as a witch doctor and due to her witchcraft his daughter suffering from illness since long. So he called some ‘tantriks’ and organized a puja in that the tantriks suggested to brand the witch doctor with hot iron and he done it.. Horrible!

Such incidents are many in these illiterate poor areas, even I remember when I was in Bihar,then also such news’s I read ,happening in Bihar and Jharkhand but occasional. Here, it seems an often news(these are reported and who knows how many such incidents were there un reported ?).

One thing we can understand, poverty and illiteracy are the root causes of such incident. But can anybody justify the act of literate illiterate’s activity in  above second incident?

Superstitions from the mind of these illiterate, poor villagers cannot be eradicated in a single day but by educating them sure, there will be a change in society and slowly such superstitions are vanished. But who cares? A hungry stomach need food first, not pencil and books. The money flowing in the name of literacy will only effective when there is a programme for sustainable income for poor’s otherwise the flowing money in the name of literacy leaks to somebody’s pockets only.

Hairstyle, sickle, and dongria women.

Sickle, axe, hoe etc are common agriculture tools of an agrarian society. Indeed Dongrias are agrarian society ,male keeps their axe as a body part on their shoulder same time female keep the sickle on their hair like a ornament as well as for domestic purpose. See pictures below how dongria woman keeping her sickle as a hairstyling clip.