Most of them have been putting it down to a supernatural curse. Jatadhari, the guardian spirit (theyyam) of the area, is angry, believe several people of Padre village of Enmakaje Gram Panchayat (village council) in Kasaragod district of Kerala. Family after family has people suffering from diseases that were never noticed in the area in the past. The worst hit is an area of about four sq km in the sixth and seventh wards of the panchayat . Here, if you walk along the Kodenkiri todu (stream), you'll realise that hardly any family has escaped the curse. Several smaller streams, flowing down the surrounding Western Ghat hills, join the Kodenkiri. The Plantation Corporation of Kerala (pck), run by the state government, has its cashew plantations on the upper reaches of these hills.

Mohana Kumar Y S, a doctor who has practised medicine in the area since 1982, has been perplexed for the past 10 years. "Disorders of the central nervous system are very common among the children of the area