Not ' Crocodile tears', its tears for Crocodile.

Source: AFP 

We all heard about 'crocodile tears' which means to show or create fake sympathy towards anything. However Babiya, a 75 year old crocodile's nature proved this phrase wrong. Babiya is a vegetarian crocodile who lived at Kerala's Anandapadmanabha Swamy temple. The locals believe that babiya was a divine soul believed to guard the cave into which the lord disappeared. Unfortunately when this pure soul Babiya died on October 9th, every devotee and temple officials were disheartened. She might be a mere crocodile but her nature has resulted in what we can say- 'tears for a crocodile'. Nobody knew how she came in the pond since there were no other ponds or rivers nearby. 

Babiya had became one of the main attractions of this temple as people believed her to be the messenger of Lord Padmanabha himself which was around 46km from Mangaluru. The crocodiles here are believed to be divine because if one crocodile dies, then mysteriously another one comes in that place within a few days. She lived with large no. of fishes in the pond but she never ate or harmed any one of them. Babiya used to come out of the lake hearing the temple bells in the afternoon and ate the prasaad of the temple served to her twice a week. After her last rituals, Babita was buried near the temple. 

She reminds us that a voracious reptile can also be loved and worshipped. We should learn from them how to be cordial with the nature and its surroundings. The temple will now wait until it gets another sweet and loving Babiya.