The snaky history of a tiny locality

 Tau Tarif Singh, drawing lineage from my great granduncle, was a small man with a huge well-composed demeanor. Very gentle in behavior, soft with words and peaceful in movements, he hardly created any ripples on the stage of life with his presence. There was an exception though. There would be a complete reversal of his persona at the sight of a snake. He would be filled with lightening agility and within the flash of a second he would run after the helpless reptile, hold it by the tail, swing it around in a highly technical way and bang it on the ground with such force that it would make a second strike almost redundant.

Let him see a snake at his house, in the locality, in the village, in the fields or open grounds or even a forest he won’t miss an opportunity to culminate its journey on earth. His biggest feat was holding two snakes by their tails simultaneously and swinging in his special way and banging them on the ground to finish their journey. Surprisingly he was never bitten in the task. To this day I wonder why would such a peaceful and calm person turn into a snake-annihilator at the mere sight of the poor reptile. Maybe some karmic entanglement with snakes; possibly Tau was a mongoose, a peacock or a garuda in his previous birth and his evolution into a different species still retained the predominant animosity against snakes.

From the village standards, Grandfather was a reasonably educated man. He was in love with mathematics and that helped him in calculating things with logic without getting clouded by unnecessary emotions. Grandmother was very tart with her tongue and he matched her in the matrimonial equation with the agility of his hardworking hand. Their domestic life, like any other farmer couple, was defined by these skirmishes between the female tongue and the male hand. But she died quite young leaving Grandfather’s hands free to engage in more suitable occupations. Grandfather was neutral to snakes. ‘One has to kill them if they sneak into the house, but one shouldn’t bother about them in the open,’ he maintained. His closest encounter with a snake happened when he was around eighty. He was still active in farming till then. It was evening and he was lying in the field, his headgear bunched under his head and one leg raised in the middle and the other supporting on the other knee. He was smoking a little hookah, his head tilted to one side to draw smoke. Another farmer was sitting nearby. A black snake chose to keep its way straight, instead of taking a detour. Grandfather’s head was tilted in the other direction. The other farmer saw it when it had already crept up to Grandfather’s stomach. Then Grandfather’s mathematical logic worked to save him from a snakebite. He turned a stone, didn’t move at all and allowed the entire length of the fearsome snake to creep over him. After that Grandfather took the longest draught at hookah in his life. ‘I have never seen so much of smoke coming out of me in my entire life,’ he told me later. ‘She was your wife who came to scare you for all your agility with your hands,’ the other farmer joked.

Father was a philosophical man. He could talk better than anyone I have ever heard in my life. His was a world of books. He wasn’t bothered much about worldly affairs. He was an athletic man and could have been at least a national level player if things had gone well. He was brainy enough to be a senior bureaucrat if things had taken a sympathetic turn for him. His oratory would have made him a famous politician if things had happened as they usually happen in the life of a successful man. But none of these happened and he was contended to be a governmental servant with hundreds of books and a philosophical mind. As the family patriarch he had to take the responsibility of killing a big-hooded cobra that had crept into the cattle barn. Mother raised a hue and cry and before Father could realize anything she had handed him a stick to make him realize his worldly duties. Father killed that big snake. I was very small at that time. And the very next day as I scampered around to play in the street I fell headlong and my forehead hit the sharp edge of a brick leaving me all bloody. I still carry the mark. ‘I hit the cobra’s hood and see the karma comes back in the form of this injury on my son’s forehead,’ Father drew his philosophical reasoning.

The biggest cobra that I have ever seen being killed also needs an account here. It was a moonlit night and a majestic cobra sneaked into the locality. The village was pretty open till then. A horse panicked and neighed a warning. The dogs barked. By chance, there were all children and female onlookers at that time. The stick was handed over to the only grown up male available. Dheere cowered with the stick. He was—sadly—nicknamed Langda because his one leg was incapacitated because of polio. Dheere struck quite forcefully, missed the mark and his crippled leg lost footing and he fell down with the strike. But after that he regained composure and somehow managed to beat the entire ground with almost a hundred strikes in rapid-fire and by chance one of the strikes hit the cobra in the middle injuring it, cutting its movements and then the striker had it easy.

My own quota in the sins against the snakes involves killing two harmless little common wolf snakes that had entered our house and my panicked mother handed over the responsibility to me as the new family patriarch. I performed the job with shaking legs. The other partnership in crime occurred when I held the torch and my uncle pounded a harmless rat snake. Yet another time, I firmly held a torch as my younger brother killed a poisonous krait snake that had crept into the garden at night. Kraits usually crawl out in the dark so one has to be careful about them. They aren't too big and can hide in little spaces coiling themselves in a distinct manner and that makes them more dangerous than a cobra. Cobras are full of attitude and don't believe in stealth fight. They would hiss and raise hood to warn you beforehand. Other battles against snakes involved throwing pebbles at the harmless water sakes in the village pond. They would dive playfully and would emerge at a distance. That was quite a fun for both the parties. I remember once I was walking on my little legs on the playground outside the village. It was a faint foot trail in the little grass. A cobra was also enjoying its walk on the same trail from the opposite direction. It stood its ground, maybe finding me small enough to turn a bully. It stood its ground, raised it hood to full spread and warned me to get off the way from a distance. I took to my heels and watched from a distance. Male cobra is arrogant I have heard. There it passed following the foot trail. I remember once me and my younger brother were playing hide and seek in a ruined abandoned house in the village. Its roof had caved in and one wall fallen leaving it open on one side. As we stepped there a big yellow rat snake got scared. Since there was only one opening all three of us were running in the same direction. Indian rat snakes are quite big and lengthy and that makes them quite scary. But they are harmless and mostly get killed because of their similarity to cobra. At that young age a snake was just a snake and I can still remember that nightmare after all these decades. 

Now I’m more balanced and logical in my approach to snakes. I can at least marvel at the crawling majesty of snakes that I come across in my solitary walks in the countryside. They are just creatures like any other creature. In the Delhi NCR there are just two poisonous snakes—out of the forty species found in the area—named Indian cobra and krait. The rest are harmless long earthworms and get unnecessarily killed because of our natural instinctive fears. Knowledge is empowering. It dispels darkness. So now I am more adjusting to their presence.

Kaka Maharaj, who stays in a hut by the canal outside the village, has so many snakes around but this isn’t an issue at all with him. There is a clump of banana trees just by his hut. Once as I approached to pay him a visit I saw a cobra basking in the sun. It scampered into the clump of trees when I arrived. I told about the naga to Kaka Maharaj. ‘This land is for all and everything,’ is all he said. After our talks on the matters of spirituality I saw him stepping into the clump of banana trees to take out a basket he had hung on a frond. He went in quite naturally. He had even forgotten that I had told him about a snake there.

There is mother nature’s little air purifier just in front of our place. It’s a dense clump of trees and vines and lots of undergrowth. Aren’t these green leaves an extension of our lungs. But people take nature for granted and hardly anyone speaks in favor of these green tissues of our lungs. People usually complain of a couple of cobras that stay here. A few sightings and people go paranoid. If you see a snake in the open, don't worry it won't run after you to bite. Rest assured it has far better things to bite for its benefit. 

Almost every other day someone is raising a hue and cry about their sighting by our yard walls. The gate is open with grilled portion on the underside. They can easily creep in. The night is theirs to creep. They are all welcome. But the day is mine. They have no business to be in during the day. They haven’t bothered me so far, so why should I bother about them. Why stretch your fears beyond a point. Just be careful a bit more, that’s all. Use torch while moving in the dark. Walk gently to allow them to creep away as you approach. And they eat mice with relish. The area is almost mouse-free. And mother nature knows more than us. There were mice that’s why there are snakes. And to ensure that the snakes don't crawl at each human step there are plenty of peacocks doing the rounds. They must be eating many little snake hatchlings to keep the number finely balanced. But who is there to keep a check on us? In our case only we can do it, individually and collectively.