I was reading the newspaper when I suddenly saw a story titled “When a neem tree married a peepal tree”. It reminded me of a tradition I that I use to wonder about when I was a little kid in my far away home. In my place, people use to believe that when a Papaya tree don’t give fruit for a long time, we can make it give fruits by marrying it with another nearby papaya tree. The concept was that if the papaya tree was not bearing fruits, it must be a male papaya tree. So, when you marry it with another fruit bearing female papaya tree, it will also start giving fruits.
The marriage were conducted as though it was a real marriage between two humans, with full tradition and customs, though in a miniature format. A few people, like around 4 or 5 from the neighboor will aggregate and conduct the marriage ceremony and some suits will be distributed to them as a formality. And the process is completed and a small cloth is wrapped around the papaya tree as if it were the dress for the new bride and groom.
Such superstitious beliefs do exist in many places in my country. But the most interesting part about this story and the marrying of the two papaya tree is that, the papaya tree did start bearing fruits in the following season and seasons that followed!