Do you believe in so called black magic? What is black magic. Decades ago when i was a small boy i heard lot of stories in the villages. Now a days the villages and the villagers have developed and even in villages also you will find all sorts of communication available such as the social media – news reaches them instantly anything happen anywhere in the world. They are as much updated as others in the big big cities. In fact they will have more updated information than others. In olden days, there was less communication and villagers used to stay in the villages and in the evening hours these villagers sit in a place where others can sit and chit chat. This you will find in each street of the villages. One will hear about the day to day activities in the agricultural fields and about their crops, availability of irrigation facilities, talking about their friends, their enemies.. since no digital media that time, whoever comes from the nearby town in our case Salur and if they bring any news that spreads like a wind in minutes. If anyone hear about any happenings in other neighbouring villages that also become a hot topic.
Coming back to the black magic – this type of news also people gossip in the village corners where they chit chat. I do not now believe in these, but during the past decades, ghosts, black magic, and so on were prevalent. As you know the villagers go to their agricultural fields very early in the morning some times four in the morning. These fields are from one to four kilometers maximum which means they are closer to the villages. They also come late in the evening and since at times they have to come alone in the darkness even if they see a shadow, when they come to the village they narrate about the shadow and how terrified that person was and this and that. People used to believe these. Since we were very small children, we get frightened listening to these.
In Telugu language we call black magic as Chillangi – what i understand about this is that there some individuals practice these extraordinary things such as they say that they approach some people who practice these in remote areas outskirts of the villages. Say for example lemon,green mirchi etc. some people use these to take drishti (black eye) – which means if the some people who are against you or your family envy and people think because that person eyed on our assets, our family we are having health propblems, or losing money this and that so people used the lemon etc, and offer prayer and throw then on the three or fourlane junction. Even now this lemon mirchi is practiced.
So those people who learn black magic will have to practice using their skills on individuals. They even go to burial grounds and stay there in the night and learn the black magic. Since after learning they need to practice, they will try to use this on an individual who they may like or may not linke. They say they will try to make small of the clay toy person to whom they want to attack. And people used to say that xyz done this, done that and because of that this person’s health reducing day by day. Then the affected family members try to go to some experienced practitioners who has more knowledge than these inexperienced practitioners – paying money and making sure that this affected member comes out of the clutuches of that person… they do this for a number of days and if they believe and convinced that the affected person will not have any further issues and they given some tabiz (protecting brass or silver ornament) tie them on the hand.
In this writing this may look very simple but in reality in villages those days people used to take extra precautions and even people try to avoid seeing the face of the practitioner with the fear this person may attack.