Odiyan....
One who can change forms.
One who has magical powers.
One who is feared by all.
One who fears none.
The strongest.
Kerala is indeed God's own country. Yet it is strife with tales of yakshi, chathan, redlaans and of course the odiyans.
My summer vaccations as a kid were mostly spent at my ancestral home in kerala. Despite being a city kid, everything about my kerala village seemed to blend into me seamlessly.
And so did the tales of odiyans.
I recollect.
As we walked thru the damp pathway surrounded with trees, towards the family temple, my father points out to tattered remains of a house and mentions in a tone that is devoid of any emotion....
"There used to be an Odiyan there, long time ago".
What I could gather from all the questions I later posed to my father was that:
Odiyan was the practioner of the odi vidya. A form of black magic which could turn a person into any other form; it could be an animal, a tree, a creeper or even another person.
Usually an odiyan is called into service by the affluent families to carry out a revenge attack on their arch enemies. The level of revenge could be varying from just scaring the person or even up to killing them.
One tale my dad recounted was that involving my grand dad.
My grandpa was a soldier in burma during the world war two and had just returned back to Kerala. In his absence, the land belonging to him was encroached by another person in the village. There was a bitter battle between the two for some years before my grandad emerged as the rightful owner of the land.
It was just months later, my grandad observed that there is this big black dog following him everywhere. My grandad who was usually at ease with animals, did not find something quite right about this dog . The dog had a vissible limp and always had its teeth unsheathed at him.
This continued for some weeks and one night when he was returning from the temple, out of the bushes the black dog jumped at him, attacking. My grandad kicked the beast away and picked up a stick and hit the dog hard on its head. The dog howled in pain and a small packet fell off from its ears. Villagers rushed to the spot hearing the commotion. Granpa asked them to tie up the dazed animal to the tree for the night.
In the morning what everyone saw was instead of the black dog, there was a naked man tied to the tree. The guy was known to all, he stayed near the temple in the secluded house and did odd jobs. He was called channakaalan vasu ( Vasu, who limped).
It was then revealed that Vasu was an odiyan and was instructed by my grandpa's rival to grievously injure him.
Both the rival and the odiyan were banished from the village.
The story here definitely sounds exaggerated and in tune to village tales.
But the fact of the matter is the reference and mention of the odiyans.
They were akin to hired rowdies or quotation groups of modern age. Just that they were more creative in their ways.
The odiyans not only used the cloak of night to execute their plans, they also indulged in a well thought out psychological scare tactics. Which also made the victim believe he had an encounter with the super natural ( if he survived it). Scare tactics, hypnotism and illusions played a major part.
And the myth always grew generation by generation. With many add-ons.
Some of which were viz,
To transform into another form, they had to place a packet behind their ears. The packet would have undergone various black magic spells and contained ashes of an unborn baby.
The most usual form assumed is that of a dog or the wolf.
The assumed form would also carry the exact bodily deformity as that of the Odiyan.
The effect of the packet wears off over the night.
Experienced Odiyans could turn invisible.
Only male can practice odi vidya.
And sooo on.
Odiyan's biggest weapons were stealth and secrecy. Even today grandmas around Kerala would refer to the Odiyan once in a while in their bed time stories to the kids.
And the young kids in their impressionable age would give wings to their imagination to figure out whether the dog that passed by was just an ordinary dog or...an Odiyan !!
One who can change forms.
One who has magical powers.
One who is feared by all.
One who fears none.
The strongest.
Kerala is indeed God's own country. Yet it is strife with tales of yakshi, chathan, redlaans and of course the odiyans.
My summer vaccations as a kid were mostly spent at my ancestral home in kerala. Despite being a city kid, everything about my kerala village seemed to blend into me seamlessly.
And so did the tales of odiyans.
I recollect.
As we walked thru the damp pathway surrounded with trees, towards the family temple, my father points out to tattered remains of a house and mentions in a tone that is devoid of any emotion....
"There used to be an Odiyan there, long time ago".
What I could gather from all the questions I later posed to my father was that:
Odiyan was the practioner of the odi vidya. A form of black magic which could turn a person into any other form; it could be an animal, a tree, a creeper or even another person.
Usually an odiyan is called into service by the affluent families to carry out a revenge attack on their arch enemies. The level of revenge could be varying from just scaring the person or even up to killing them.
One tale my dad recounted was that involving my grand dad.
My grandpa was a soldier in burma during the world war two and had just returned back to Kerala. In his absence, the land belonging to him was encroached by another person in the village. There was a bitter battle between the two for some years before my grandad emerged as the rightful owner of the land.
It was just months later, my grandad observed that there is this big black dog following him everywhere. My grandad who was usually at ease with animals, did not find something quite right about this dog . The dog had a vissible limp and always had its teeth unsheathed at him.
This continued for some weeks and one night when he was returning from the temple, out of the bushes the black dog jumped at him, attacking. My grandad kicked the beast away and picked up a stick and hit the dog hard on its head. The dog howled in pain and a small packet fell off from its ears. Villagers rushed to the spot hearing the commotion. Granpa asked them to tie up the dazed animal to the tree for the night.
In the morning what everyone saw was instead of the black dog, there was a naked man tied to the tree. The guy was known to all, he stayed near the temple in the secluded house and did odd jobs. He was called channakaalan vasu ( Vasu, who limped).
It was then revealed that Vasu was an odiyan and was instructed by my grandpa's rival to grievously injure him.
Both the rival and the odiyan were banished from the village.
The story here definitely sounds exaggerated and in tune to village tales.
But the fact of the matter is the reference and mention of the odiyans.
They were akin to hired rowdies or quotation groups of modern age. Just that they were more creative in their ways.
The odiyans not only used the cloak of night to execute their plans, they also indulged in a well thought out psychological scare tactics. Which also made the victim believe he had an encounter with the super natural ( if he survived it). Scare tactics, hypnotism and illusions played a major part.
And the myth always grew generation by generation. With many add-ons.
Some of which were viz,
To transform into another form, they had to place a packet behind their ears. The packet would have undergone various black magic spells and contained ashes of an unborn baby.
The most usual form assumed is that of a dog or the wolf.
The assumed form would also carry the exact bodily deformity as that of the Odiyan.
The effect of the packet wears off over the night.
Experienced Odiyans could turn invisible.
Only male can practice odi vidya.
And sooo on.
Odiyan's biggest weapons were stealth and secrecy. Even today grandmas around Kerala would refer to the Odiyan once in a while in their bed time stories to the kids.
And the young kids in their impressionable age would give wings to their imagination to figure out whether the dog that passed by was just an ordinary dog or...an Odiyan !!
