In Himachal Pradesh, farmers turn to mobile apps for climate updates

SHIMLA/MANALI: Weather updates that are easily available on the internet and mobile phones , it seems , have made redundant the job of oracles in Himachal Pradesh’s villages .

These oracles , who held sway over the largely agrarian population , and were attached to the thousands of temples dotted over the hill state , are now looking at other avenues of employment .

“Even though villagers still visit the temples , they have stopped consulting the oracles for weather forecasts ,” says Ashutosh Chauhan , an apple grower from Ratnari village of Shimla district . This has marked a huge shift in the importance of these priests , who held sway over the village community with their ability to predict whether the weather would be awesome or troublesome .

Octogenarian Tabey Ram from Kullu valley says that there was a time till just a few years back when the village oracle was a highly revered figure . “In times of distress , especially when there was a natural calamity , heavy rainsor snowor severedrought spells , the villagers turned to the oracles for a solution . When the gods offered a remedy for their sorrow , a goat would be offered as sacrifice . But things are changing very fast now .”

The change has been brought about largely by mobile phones and technology . Almost every farmer in thestate nowwalks aroundwith a mobile app like Accuweather .com , Myweather Mobile andNewson Weather which hand out timely warnings on impending snow , hail or rain . “These forecasts are quite accurate and we are able to plan our work much better since we know how the weather is going to behave ,” says Pradeep Kumar , an apple orchard owner from Rohru .

With farmers taking to technology and oracles looking at taking up new jobs to survive , it seems like the end of a long cultural tradition in the hills.