Snakes @ IIT

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Continuing from yesterday's post: Snakes @ School, I now come to Snakes at IIT KGP.

In the 7 years at my University in between I didn't meet with any significant snakes although it was flush with trees big and small. Perhaps the ozone from the salty sea-breeze is too rich for snakes.

During my first decade at KGP when I was mostly living in the Faculty Hostel I didn't see any snakes of repute. But I used to hear that the sprawling backyards of the Staff Quarters were very cordial to them and very often they visited their kitchens and coal cellars as well.

Coal was cheap at KGP since it was a Railway Town and the goods trains that carried coal from the Coal Fields (Black Diamond) to the Steel Plant at Tatanagar were available to cognoscenti. I used to watch with pleasure wayside ladies and urchins standing by the rail line with long bamboo sticks (with hooks) download the over-topping coal of open wagons while the train was slowly running at the Puri Gate Signal.

Harry Tikka's dadu, a lean old bare-bodied bachelor hailing from the tracts of Chottogram (Chittagong) was the resident expert at snake-catching. He was always available at Harry's day and night on calls for help and he would come with his stick and bamboozle the snake into his pot and release her into the neighbor's fence at no cost at all; it was his hobby and service with a smile. You can see his framed photo at Harry's playing with his snakes.

For two decades from 1974 to 1993 I was living in the C1-97 Qrs of the famed Dandakaranya:

"....These were truly charming and full of adventure as they were peaceful-coexistence homes to serpents, jackals, rabbits. owls. giant spiders, turtle-snails, bandicoots and all species of wildlife save Man-Eating Royal Bengal Tigers displaced from Sunderbans......"

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2010/09/sefasa.html

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It was my habit of wintry Saturday afternoons at C1-97 to lie down and snooze on my folding cot set up in the lukewarm sun in the backyard and keep shifting the cot every hour as the sun hurtled tirelessly in his wee winter orbit and sank behind the mango tree.

In one of those siestas I heard an urgent alarm call of our squirrel from the branch of her Guava tree home but ignored it and turned the other side. A few seconds later, the resident stray dog joined the squirrel, getting up on his feet and barking furiously.

I then knew something was wrong and got down from the cot on the right side, as it turned out, and had a look at the thing that the dog and squirrel were going crazy about.

It was a long slim beautiful cobra standing upright with her lovely hood flung open and her spectacles glistening in the afternoon sun on the other side of the cot. Since I read Jim Corbett's Jungle Lore by then, I knew that she must have been disturbed from her winter hibernation.

I came to attention at once and stood stock still. Sensing the commotion, she also stood angrily still, with her great hood up and her long and wiry split tongue flashing like so many forked lightnings. Our silent encounter must have lasted no more than half a minute though it looked like eternity then. Assured that she was under no threat of attack from anyone, she slo...wly decommissioned her hood, turned back, and slithered into our fence in a flash.

That was a most graceful retreat, though my heart was pounding like a hammer.

The surprising thing was that the drama repeated itself faithfully on 2 successive Saturday afternoons; but no more.

And then there was my friend of bachelorhood, the huge 7 ft Dhamin (rat snake) that used to run fearlessly in our part of Dandakaranya. Dhamins are among the fastest of leaping snakes, absolutely non-poisonous, and serve an ecological purpose, ridding the jungle of excessive rodents. No one kills them: just say 'hi' and he would take himself off elsewhere on his eco-mission.

But when my son was about a year old, one morning at 9, I found our friendly neighborhood Dhamin snug in our bedroom sliding along the corner of its western wall. Fortunately my son was busy sitting on his mummy's tummy on another guest cot in the Hall and teasing her playfully just as Ishani does now on his tummy.

I quickly moved into the Hall, asked my wife not to get down, closed the connecting door, bolted it, armed myself with the massive 3 foot-long wooden cross-piece that acted as an extra door-bolt, and entered the bedroom determined to kill our unwelcome guest.

I regretted the decision later but at that moment there were no qualms. The reason was simple: if my wife sees him in her bedroom she would instantly die of massive heart attack; such was his length and girth.

It was a long-drawn but equal battle in which he finally went down the valiant victim and I hurt my foot while chasing him out into the garden taking one of my own nasty mis-hits on my toe which sort of got squashed, painfully disfigured, infected; and took vengeful years to completely heal.

I salute his valor; but milady's boudoirs are barred to Dhami snakes. He must have been chasing a sneaky rat, lost his way, climbed the back-stairs, and landed up in our bedroom. But a Repeat Guest Entry would have been catastrophic for the family.

Either it was him or my wife; a Hobson's Choice.

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Jim Corbett from Jungle Lore:

"....In India twenty thousand people die each year of snake-bite. Of these twenty thousand, I believe only half die of snake poison; the other half die of shock or fright, or a combination of the two, from non-poisonous snakes......In most villages in India there are men who are credited with being able to cure people bitten by snakes. As only some ten percent of the snakes in India are poisonous, these men build up their great reputation for themselves. They give their services free and do a good work among the poor, for though they cannot with their nostrums and charms cure anyone who has received a lethal dose of snake poison, they do save many people bitten by non-poisonous snakes, by infusing them with courage and confidence".

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Along the Coromandel Coast of AP has been running the hoary Madras-Howrah Mail for more than a century. There is a small town called Sullurpet, in which once lived in our boyhood a Railway Clerk called affectionately: "Pamula Narasaiah" (Snakes Man-Lion, literally).

Whenever anyone living in villages along the 1500 km railway line got bitten by a snake, all his friends and relatives have to do was to carry the shocked victim to the nearest Railway Station and ask the ASM to please send a telegram to Pamula Narasiah at Sullurpet. The ASM would oblige with the Railway Communication Network. Within a few minutes, there would be a return telegram informing that Narasaiah tied his magic upper cloth to the holy tree in the backyard of his Railway Quarters.

On being informed of this comforting message, the victim would slowly get up on his feet and start walking back to his hut, with a song on his lips.

Hats off to Narasaiahs for their Free and Prompt Service!


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