Ropar, November 2
In a rare incident of its kind the ‘ojhas’ today tried to bring a snake-bite victim back to life in the morgue of the Civil Hospital, Ropar. The drama illustrating predominance of myths over medical science right on the premises of the Civil Hospital, Ropar, started yesterday afternoon. A snake-bite victim Avtar Singh of Pathreri Jattan village was brought to the hospital. He was declared dead by the doctors at the hospital at about 1.45 pm yesterday.
However, family members of Avtar Singh, who was himself an ‘ojha’ known for treating snake-bite victims, refused to believe that the victim had died. They stressed upon taking the body of Avtar Singh for bringing him back to life by ‘ojha’ rituals. The doctors refused to give the body without conducting a postmortem. They, however, allowed the family members of Avtar Singh to carry out the ‘ojha’ rituals in the morgue.
The drama then unfolded in the morgue in which different ‘ojha’ came one after the other and carried out their rituals. A large crowd gathered at the Civil Hospital to witness the drama.
‘Ojhas’ came one after another bringing brooms of neem leaves, camphor and other products to create smoke. One after another they tried their rituals over the dead body of Avtar Singh and administered mysterious medicine, with the crowd and the family members anxiously waiting for the dead to come to life.
Even the snake that bit the victim to death was brought to the morgue house to suck out the poison out of the victim in a filmi fashion. But unlike films the snake failed to oblige the ‘ojhas’ murmuring mantras.
Various ‘ojhas’ continued their rituals over the body today also, attracting a huge crowd till the arrival of expert ‘ojha’ Ludhianawala baba at about 3 pm. The baba sat in front of the morgue and started chanting mantras. He then entered the morgue and carried his rituals for about 10 to 15 more minutes before coming out and declaring that he needed a special herb to bring back the dead to life. He then returned at about 5 pm declaring that he had failed to locate the special herb and nobody could now save the life of the victim. However, the doctors at the hospital were still waiting to conduct the postmortem.
