Uttar Pradesh: Snake ‘curse’ leaves village sans doors

Lucknow: No one in this village can exactly say when the incident took place but everyone unanimously agrees that it did and left a curse on people.

The curse is that anyone who installs a door or even a door frame in his or her house faces misery, mostly death. And to ward off the curse, not a single house in Sudemau village in Uttar Pradesh’s Pratapgarh district has a door.

“In Shani Shingapur village in Maharashtra, people do not lock their doors because Lord Shani, the village deity, guards them but here we do not even have doors,” said Rajvir Singh, a local resident.

The local people claim that several years ago, a pair of snakes lived in the village and one of them got accidentally crushed between a doorframe and a door.

“Since then, anyone who installs even a door frame faces death — it is believed to be the curse of the snake whose mate was killed. Even the most affluent people with pucca houses and all possible amenities have not put up door frames or doors,” explained Mr Singh.

Even though Pratapgarh is known as a crime–prone district in Uttar Pradesh, no theft has ever been reported from doorless houses in Sudemau.

Officials of Patti police station admit that not a single case of theft has ever been reported in the village. “Probably the fact that the people believe so strongly in the curse and also that the ‘Nag Devta’ (snake god) guards their doorless homes, keeps miscreants away,” said an inspector who was earlier posted here.

Many village residents even cite instances where some people installed door frames in their houses and then faced death. “People have faced a series of untimely deaths in their families in a manner that there was no future generation left. Some of them took off the door frames and the bad spell vanished,” said Gaurav Misra.

Vijay Narain has been a victim of the cruse when his father defied the “superstition” and built a house on the outskirts of the village and installed door frames.

“Even before he could install doors, his brother passed away. There were two more deaths in the family and my father took off the door frames. Things returned to normal after that,” he said.

Unlike many huts in the village Mr Misra has a house with a concrete structure but without doors. “There is no fear of any intrusion except by stray dogs and cats. The only problem we face is in winters when the cold wind gets into the house but we have learnt to live with this”, he said. His mother Sujata has now put up a thick curtain in the doorway to create a semblance of privacy in the house.

“My daughter is growing up and my daughter-in-law has just given birth to a son. I use curtains in the washroom and on the doorway and people call out before entering,” she said.

The villagers in Sudemau regularly perform a puja to appease the snake god and there has not been a single case of snake bite in recent years. “There are snakes in the village, but they never harm us. We hope the curse wears off one day but till then, we will keep doing all that is needed to keep bad luck away,” Mr  Narain said.

Strange belief

• Several years ago, a pair of snakes lived in the village and one of them got crushed between a doorframe and a door, claim villagers
• It is believed, the second snake cursed that anyone who installs even a door frame will face death