NEW DELHI – An Indian farmer has come up with an innovative idea to havebumper crop and to save his crop fields from the evil eyes.

Ironically he claims that his idea has worked and he has got a bumper cropthis season due to the poster of the Sunny Leone.

Sunny Leone strikes a sultry pose in a red bikini against the greenbackdrop of a farmer’s large field of vegetable crop in Andhra Pradesh’sNellore district. And as intended, she attracts all the attention.

The 45-year-old A Chenchu Reddy of Banda Kindi Palle village is not aparticular fan of the Indian-American porn-star-turned-Bollywood-actor, buther poster is keeping his bumper crop of cauliflower and cabbage safe fromthe “evil eye” of fellow villagers.

“This year, I have a good crop on 10 acres. This has been attractingunnecessary attention of villagers and passersby. To ward off their evileye, I thought of this idea of putting up the big flax poster of SunnyLeone a couple of days ago,” he said on Tuesday.

The poster has a line written in Telugu: “Orey, nannu chusi edavakura (Hey,don’t cry or feel jealous of me)!”

The strategy is working apparently and Leone is diverting people’s gazefrom his field. “The trick has worked. Nobody is looking at my crop now,”Reddy said.

It’s quite common in the countryside for superstition-steeped farmers touse straw-filled scarecrows with an upside down clay pitcher to resemble ahuman head for scaring birds away from fields or put ugly, fearsome dolls —called “bommalu” in Telugu — to block the evil eye.

In rural Andhra Pradesh, demons drawn on a metal plate or a pumpkin are setup as “dishti bomma” or evil eye doll in front of homes and near farms. Buta poster of a popular actor in a skimpy bikini is a first, perhaps.

The farmer doesn’t think he has breached any indecency law, and nor does hegive a hang to agriculture officials or police finding the visualobjectionable. “The officials never bother to come to our fields to findout our problems. Why should they have any objection?” he asked.