Dharma Katha · Season 1: Pitru Paksha · Episode 6

On a rooftop in the early morning, a woman places a plate. It holds a little rice, a spoon of lentils, a piece of bread. She sets it on the parapet, steps back, and waits. She is not waiting for a guest. She is waiting for a crow.

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Source note. Label: tradition. The custom of kaak bali, the offering to the crow in Shraddha, and the belief that ancestors may come in the form of a crow, are living tradition and are not commanded in a specific verse that I am quoting. The Jayanta and crow episode is in the Ramayana, but the link to Shraddha is a folk explanation. The scientific note about crows recognising human faces is from published research on corvid cognition. The scene of the woman on the rooftop is my r ...