A heart-thudding episode!!!

 

THUD!!!!!

The sound was rather unusual  - more so because it was followed by  high pitched squeaking squealing  sounds.  I was in the inner room just getting ready to start the days work. The sound had come from the dining area side which has a high tiled roof.  I often see snakes on the rafters looking for rats. 

An old pic of a snake on the rafters

My guess was that a snake must have fallen down while trying to catch its prey.

I wasn’t wrong – as I peeped out cautiously from the connecting doorway I saw a large motionless lump next to the fridge just near the other door that leads to the hall.  I just couldn’t make out what it was.  The light wasn’t too bright and it was in the shadow of the fridge. I went closer and shone the torch on it.

Prey -tell me what is it!!!!

 It was a snake that had wrapped itself tight against a helpless rat whose squeals were slowly diminishing and fading.  What was heart-stoppingly scary was that Perl was too close to the snake on the other side of it.  She had the most curious expression and looked as if she would nudge the lump with her nose.  

“Perl -NO” I yelled at her and she backed off a bit. Zuki had followed me and was within my reach and I could hold her back. But not Perl.  Thankfully my farm-hand was back from delivering the milk and I called out to him with a “Kooooieeee”

 A Kooiee  is  a standard way the locals call one another -a way of throwing your voice farther than a normal shout would go.  I think I have gotten quite good at it because unlike most time when I walk out onto the porch to ‘Kooiieee’ today I was yelling it from within the house -just hoping he would hear it.  Luckily he did and replied back.

 It wasn’t yet time for his breakfast kooiieee so I guess he realized it was something unusual – I could hear him walk towards the house. “Come carefully and try to catch Perl -There is a snake here”  I said.  He came in thru the main door and managed to catch Perl and pull her back -looking wide eyed at the immobile lump on the floor. 

 “Leave it alone”  he said  “Danger Snake”

  “No - We have to get this out of the house – Think of an idea…” I said.  He had the most doubtful look on his face. 

I looked around – there was a large plastic tub which could cover the whole lump without touching it.  As I picked it up “Aagudilla - It won’t work” he said.   I asked him to move back a bit, I did not want the snake to unleash itself from its prey – it was such a tight bundle – you could not make out the head or tail portion of the snake.  All I could see was that it did not seem to be the usual Rat snake cos it had white markings on it.  If it unleashed in my direction, I had the tub like a shield.

S...l…o…w…l…y……..step closer………… steady your hands…………….and……………. gently place the inverted tub over the lump!!!!

Whheeew-  a sigh of relief!

Perl looking curiously
- Why did you cover it up?  It would have been interesting to watch the snake devour the prey - she seems to say

 – What next now? 

  “Leave it there”  he repeated.

“Look for a sheet”  I said.  I meant a hard sheet that I could slide under the tub and then carry the whole thing out of the house.

“Aagudilla…”

I could not think of a  large enough sheet with a  flat edge.  The lids of the cow feed drums would be large enough but they have  a 2 inch high border around the circumference – impossible to slide it under the ‘thing’  without letting the inmate escape

A couple of large  plastic gunny bags caught my eye. This would be perfect if the whole tub could go into it. I picked one.

“Aagudilla”….again!

Will this sack be large enough?

Hold this edge down tight I instructed pointing towards the edge of the sack opening,  and slowly tried to slide the tub into the open sack.  A couple of failed attempts – the tub wasn’t sliding as expected, the material kept folding up   -  I realized the lad was holding down the edge of the tub tight!!!

Leave that and hold the edge of the sack flat and down I instructed.   He looked doubtful, probably the thought of the ‘thing’ being slid an inch away from his hand wasn’t a comforting thought.  Look I am holding this side down I said.  He gingerly held the other side down and this time I could successfully slide  the tub right into the sack – there was no resistance from the inmate – just a little struggle for me to not let the sack fold up and not raise the edge of the tub too much!

Finally it was all in – the snake, its prey and the tub. I lifted it and bunched up the mouth of the sack really tight and handed it over asking him to  release it a little away from the house. He was back after some time – “Danger Haavu(snake)”  he said. 

Yes it was I guess!

Epilogue 

 

 The same snake was back on the rafters a few days later.  Guess its fall did not bother him much.  This time it was the sound of a dry leaf falling a few feet away from where I was sitting at my table, that alerted me to its presence.  And no the photo is not very clear, so if anyone can still identify the snake, it would be great!

He sat motionless curled around the  rafters for more than an hour. Finally I alerted the lad.

He came back with a long pole - a slight nudge and the  sluggish snake slithered out of sight through the layers of overlapping tiles.  I tried to catch a glimpse of it from outside the house, but it had disappeared  out of sight!

Well, out of sight - out of mind!

Until the next time I hear the sound of a falling leaf!

 

 

Trink ....trink....trink.....trinket snake!

Perfectly  Camouflaged

I always seem to be running late.  And I have the most far-fetched excuses .....believe me if you will.

During the rains, we cannot bring our Alto near the house due to the gushing stream that flows past.  So we park the car beyond it – about 100  mts away.  

I have walked all the way from the house past the neighbours farm, crossed the stream, reached the car thinking to myself well at least today I am on time, only to realise that I have left the car keys on the table at home!

Then the other day, I did all of the above - in time,  with my car keys safely clutched in my hand, started the car and barely went 2 metres ahead when a huge tractor-trailor lumbered up on the tiny dirt road bang in front of me.  There is no way that I can get past.  The guy is carrying compost for one of the fields  which has a road access only through the stream.  The stream is at a very low ebb today and the perfect day for them.  But the path is blocked by a stone barricade that some other villagers have erected to chanel the flowing water to their fields.  So two men jump off the tractor and proceed to remove the stone barricade at a leisurely pace.  Then  the tractor eases down the path, finally allowing me to proceed.  I was late again - but wasn't really my fault, was it?

Just the other day, I was rushing out to meet some one.  Normally the last thing that I do after locking the back door and the side door, is let the dogs out onto the porch and then lock the house. Sometimes I have to entice them out of the house with chew-sticks,  so they know the routine. The minute I pick the keys and the chewsticks, they race out of the front door.  I did my final check -– mobile, car keys, etc and was just about to call the dogs out when I noticed Zuki behaving rather strangely. She was just 2 feet away from the  cane chair on which she normally sits, and looking very alert and  barking in a very strange soft way -  not the normal BOW WOW cacophony that greets guests or monkeys (not in any particular order) .  This was just a ‘whurrff’...   ‘long pause’ ..... ‘whurrf’.   She was gazing intently at the Cane chair.  I looked too, but couldn’t see anything amiss.

 Then suddenly it moved.

 It was a beauty of a snake, just as slender as the cane and perfectly camouflaged.  Now this one, I had to get out of the house. But before anything else, I had to get the dogs out of the way.  I pulled some chewsticks out of the packet and as usual they ran out onto the porch.  But today I wanted to lock them in the inner room so that I could  send the snake out without their interference.  It took some cajoling  to bring them back into the house and into the inner room. I locked them up there and then turned my attention to the snake.  It was a real beauty and unlike any I had seen before. We looked at each other for some time.  I clicked a photo, a small video as well.  

Now to get it out of the house.  It was perfectly coiled around the cane of the chair and all I had to do was slide the chair out without alarming it and then it could go out in peace.  But it wasn’t as easy.  I waited until it was facing away from me and slowly tried to move the chair.  But the minute it sensed the movement, it turned towards me and actually appeared to swell up!  I stood still waiting till it relaxed again and started exploring the other parts of the chair. Slow gentle push......all the way till the door....Yes! managed it!  Now one step below –I had to lift the chair.  That movement caused the snake to panic, and seeing the door quite close made a lunge towards it. The last thing I wanted was it to  climb onto the door and escape to some unreachable place.  I managed to lift the chair and place it out on the porch.  Now with better light, I could go around the chair and admire it more closely and click some better pics.  

And then suddenly I remembered my appointment.  Well no more time to dawdle, I pushed the chair to the edge of the porch and tipped it over gently. The snake – back on familiar ground, raced out to the safety of the bushes.  I waited a while before releasing the dogs.  

Later on looking up the book of 'Snakes in the Indian Subcontinent', I recognised it as a ‘Trinket Snake’  A pretty name for a pretty snake!

Needless to say, I was late again.      

The Breadfruit

The breadfruit (Neer phanas or Div Kadgi) seemed to take forever to peel and cut. I had planned on making a delicious stir-fry and I was already running late. As usual when I am in a hurry, I start heating the pan and dunking in the pieces as they get chopped up.  I just put in the last batch of pieces, when the gas fluttered and gasped and went out!  The gas cylinder was nearing its Finish Time and it chose just this minute to wind up!

Well, no worries, we have a spare cylinder. I started moving out the stuff from the front of the cylinder to be able to pull it out. A spare bottle of liquid soap, a bottle of coconut water collected for the Panchagavya that I was planning on making later this week and a plastic bag filled with waste plastic bags. Oh I hate this non-biodegradable thrash – everything from wheat-flour to sugar and all essentials come wrapped/sealed in plastic and there is no way I can avoid this. I collect it in a plastic bag for disposal later. As I pulled out the bag, I noticed what looked like a  brown roll of paper just behind the cylinder.  Thinking it was the roll of postal paper in which I had received some mail, I bent down to pick it up –but  wait – did it just flinch a wee bit?  I put on my spectacles  – and yes indeed – it  had flinched at my outstretched hand .... and was now staring back at me with beady eyes.

What.......... was ...................it......... ???? 

 I needed more light and got my torch and shone it into  the shadowy part under the kitchen platform – I could now see the small head and a muscular swathe  of  brown circling behind the cylinder. I called out to Vivek and we both debated on the next course of action. It looked sluggish.  The first step was to see it properly. We pulled out the gas cylinder carefully to see this humongous guy all curled up in a perfect camouflage! 

What a perfect Camouflage!

Could it really be a python?  I quickly clicked a pic and sent it to our vet Dr. Gourish Padukone who is an expert on snakes.  “Yes, it does look like a python.  If you can – then grab it by its tail and lift it high up so that it does not get the leverage to wrap itself around your arm” he advised. “And be careful – it can whip itself around your arm or leg in an instant”  he warned.

Now the position being in that little niche under the cooking platform, it would be difficult to pull it out and up swiftly and we could not assess how long it was.  We got a big sack and a large pipe.  We closed one end of the pipe by stuffing some cloth into it. The other end, we pointed towards the snake.  Most often, the snake seeking refuge into what is most comfortable for it, slides into the pipe and then the rest is easy. All we need to do is block the other end too, cart the pipe and its occupant a safe distance away and release it.  But this guy was  too woozy after what seemed like a heavy meal – we could see the tell-tale bulge  around his middle. He kept turning away from the pipe and trying to seek an escape path into the granite of the kitchen platform.  And every minute’s delay was making the half cooked breadfruit turn into a soggier mess.

 Finally Vivek put a sack over his hands and grabbed its tail.  This jolted Mr. Py  enough and he slithered right into the awaiting pipe.  The length of the pipe seemed a wee bit shorter than its occupant and we had to tap his tail a couple of times for him to retract it completely into the pipe.   Now what next ?  Our vet had offered to release it the next day into the deep forest which he was to traverse through for a visit.  It is not advisable to release such large snakes near human inhabitation. So I quickly emptied out the box in which I store my quilting materials and the sluggish giant was unceremoniously tipped into it. We closed the lid before he could right himself and rise up. The box has a latch, but when compared to the sheer muscle power of the inhabitant, it looked really flimsy and could just snap open. So we placed some weights on it, kept it in one of the spare rooms, and closed the door and windows. 

How puny the weights look!

As you can well imagine, dinner was delayed, the breadfruit didn’t turn out to be the perfectly crisp edged stir fry that it usually does, but we were too excited to mind.  It is not everyday that your dinner gets delayed and ruined by a guest of these proportions!!!

The next day, our vet called us on his way and we handed the basket over to him.  On taking a closer look, he clarified that it was a Sand Boa. 

We were expecting human guests at home for lunch, else we would not have missed the opportunity of  a ride into the deep forest to bid adieu to this very rare visitor.

Hisssssss............Hibernation Hassles!

The room is dark and cool.  It looks like no one has been in for quite some time. I make my way inside and look around for a decent place to snuggle into.  There seems to be none, the room is bare except for a cloth covered thing kept vertically in the corner. 

  I explore around and find a perfect opening for me to slide into. There is a large round smooth surface, beyond which there is a long bar with cold, thin metal strips across it.

But the metallic strips are smooth and I make my way to the top. Just as I wrap myself around the wooden bar for my snoozy, the whole thing tilts and tips over.

But I am too sleepy to bother and I snuggle into the perfectly comfortable position and a dull, lethargic feeling washes over me and soon I float away into dreamland.

I have no idea how many hours or days I have slept, but suddenly there are voices right in this very room. A harsh light is switched on, and footsteps approach me rapidly.

“Oh, no, the sitar has fallen...  how could it,.... this is not the way I had kept it,  oh no.....” a woman’s voice cries.

 The man replies “Oh I must have kept it down when I was fixing the light in this corner”

“But this is not the way to keep it,  no it has fallen over..” and gentle hands grasp the very bar on which I have wound myself and turn it over.

I jerk out of the way.

“Oops, there is something inside, looks like a frog has got in”.

 Oh woman!  Mistaking me, for my very own meal.

“Oh is it? I’ll  get him out” and the cover is being opened.

Oh what nerve!

 The light shines right thru and looks like I have no place to hide.

“Wait, don’t just open it, check whether it really is a frog”

“Yeah I’m doing just that”

“No, don’t!  Just feel it from outside” and the woman actually pats me!

Oh what cheek.

“Doesn’t feel like a frog”

Now the man walks over and pats around.  I hiss.

“Was that a hiss?”

Oh these humans!  How loud does one have to hiss for them to know that it is actually a hiss!

 And I am being patted again!  Now I hiss real loud.

“Oh yes there is a snake in there”  the man says. 

“Let it be, leave it alone, it must have been resting”...  Some sense finally!

“Wonder which one it is. May be if we wait, it might crawl out”........Oh really?

“It is already too late now, we’ve got to be up early tomorrow, and it is Ok if I don’t loosen the sitar strings for a week. We can check whether it is still inside after we return”.......Oh you bet!  

Thankfully they switch off the lights, and go away leaving me alone in the comfortable darkness. Looks like I have a whole week of peace and quiet, now. So I better get back to catching up on my glorious beauty sssssssleeeeeeep.





p.s.  When we returned after a week, Mr. Hisser was still hibernating inside the cloth cover of the sitar.  We carried the whole thing out into the bushes and gently opened the knot. The snake slid out and vanished into the greenery at an astonishing speed.    

Cobra Kingdom.

 

 

Pure, pulsating energy!  What supreme might and power packed into one long body no thicker than your fore-arm.  No arms to wield mighty weapons, no legs to deliver a well aimed kick, no horns to butt, no weight to crush you underfoot!  Just a sliver of a forked tongue and a strike at the speed of lightening!  Just one strike and you could bid adieu to this world!

What is in a Cobra that invokes such awe that you could stand spell-bound and watch it forever ?  Oh the beauty of its rippling scales, its sharp eyes that watch your every move, its total supremacy over the entire world! 

 

 

And if you are lucky enough to watch it with its hood spread out .... you can consider yourself Very Lucky indeed. Because it is such a rare sight.

We see scores of snakes around the farm.  Most of them are the non-poisonous rat snakes (Pytas Mucosa / Deevad in Konkani ).  And I guess if it wasn't for them, we would have had rats around the house.

 

 

A couple of Russell’s vipers are sighted but mostly at night -  with their beautiful patterned scales – you bet the pochampalli silk design is a copy of the pattern on the Russels viper! 

 

 

See this painting depicting a girl wearing a Pochampalli sari and you will know what I mean.

A painting by German Artist Hermann Linde (c 1895)

 

An ocassioanl Sand boa has made an appearance – in fact once during the time when we had to sleep in the tent near the rice fields to keepboars at bay, we came home in the morning to find Posha our cat doing what we call a snake dance in front of the fridge. He puffs up like a Kathakali dancer, perches on his toes (okay, call them claws) and lowering his head, moves it – left to right, right to left peering ahead.  It is a soundless dance sometimes, and sometimes he makes a growling sound. We shone the torch below the fridge and sure enough could see some shiny, rippling thing below. It was extremely sluggish and slow, and even when we moved the fridge, it did not try to run away.  Vivek  managed to put it into a large gunny bag and released it in the forest.  We managed to keep the boars away, but came home to face a Boa!

 

 

 

 

 The dogs are unperturbed by most of them.  Johnny, with his inherent farm skills, knows exactly which snake is poisonous and stays away, but takes pleasure in chasing the Rat snakes.  The rest of our canine brigade, city-bred as they are, think they can chase and play with any snake.  Johnny has a special bark for poisonous snakes and just recently we realised that he has an extra special bark for the Cobra! 

 

 It sounds like a low gruff warning “GRUFFFFFFFFF”  and he does not run out, but stands still watching it.  You can follow his line of sight to speed up else you will not even notice the slithering soundless movement that barely even moves a blade of grass.  And this is how we caught sight of this royal visitor who deigned to  give us a rare sighting!