Adilabad: Following age-old tradition, farmers today also boil milk and letting it overflow before starting the process to pick cotton during the harvest season in their agriculture fields in North Telangana districts.
They then drop five cotton bolls in the remaining milk in the pot. This is the traditional way of offering Naivedyam to the god before starting cotton picking.
The farmers put up five stones calling them as Panchapandavulu with whitewash at the place where they offer traditional puja in the cotton fields.
Ramanaveni Laxmi of Kumari village in Neredigonda mandal said they perform special puja in the cotton field before they start cotton picking and generally they start picking on an auspicious Panchami or Navami day or Sunday, Thursday or Fridays.
She said they take pure milk in a small pot to the cotton field and boil the milk till it overflows onto the ground, wishing that the cotton yield would also overflow in that season.
Generally, farmers break coconut as part of the puja and apply turmeric and vermilion to the stones.
Sangepu Borranna of Gaurapur village Indravelli mandal said the tradition of boiling milk and letting it overflow (Palu Pongin-chadam) can be seen in house warming ceremony and the same is practiced before cotton picking starts.
“Adivasis do not pluck even the vegetables they raised without performing a traditional puja in the agriculture field,” he said and added that they cook curry with vegetables borrowed from neighbouring non-Tribal farmers.
“The Adivasis eat the food with the curry prepared in the field before they start plucking the vegetables like tomato, mirchi, ladiesfinger and brinjal,” Borranna said.
