Hyderabad, November 28: When our correspondent was returning after inspecting several uninhabited mosque at Nadirgul village 20 kms away from the city, he passed by the temple of Kali Mata where a large number of coconuts were being dried in the ground. Several questions struck in his mind after seeing that and he shot the picture of the coconuts with the permission of temple priest and started conversation with him during which a shocking revelation came to the fore.
Answering to a question the priest said ‘a large number of devotees visit the temple and every person brings a coconut with him to offer. We leave the coconut to dry and then sell to oil extracting companies. Usually this coconut is used for chutney served with idli, dosa or vada. Hotel owners mostly belonging to Andhrite hotels take the fresh coconut from here and the oil extracting companies take dried coconuts. The devotees coming here are aware of this and we don’t do it on the sly. We take care of the temple with this income. We do the maintenance of the temple and also invest the money in the development of the temple.’
He said if the coconuts are not sold then what can we do with this heavy deluge of coconuts. Mentioning the procedure of coconut offering the priest said ‘We swivel this coconut over the deity for three times and then break it on the stone placed at the foot of deity.’
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