The Rare Bird Review

Two giants toads were married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in eastern India over the weekend by villagers hoping to encourge the rain gods to end a dry spell.

Some 400 people cheered and blew conches as women put streaks of vermilion on the female toad's head (see photo) while a band played music and priests solemnized the marriage to the chanting of Hindu hymns. The toads were picked up from separate ponds, dressed in bright red clothes and brought to the marriage venue in a decorated conatiner in Khochakandar village in West Bengal state late Sunday.

The married toads were released into a pond after the ceremony in the village about 225 miles north of the state capital, Calcutta.

"Our forefathers used to organize marriages of toads to get sufficient rain for cultivation. We hope rain will be coming very soon," said Konica Mandal, one of the organizers of the wedding. The village has been reeling under a severe heat wave with temperatures over 100 degrees, drying up ponds and creating problems for farmers and their crops.

Bird has dispatched one of his Asian relatives to Khochakandar to cover this story and the now expected torrential rainfall.

The RBR wonders where the Giant Plastic Jesus folks are on this strange story. If this world is to ever be moral we can't allow toads to marry! At least they aren't gay toads. Now THAT would bring out the GPJ folks in droves.

Late Word In: Vasu, our Indian flamingo reporter, will be delayed in his report because he's a little Sikh at the moment.