Meeting a red sand boa

 

A lovely mid-October evening. The sun setting relaxedly over the paddy fields ready for harvesting. A narrow asphalt road circuiting through farmlands connecting villages away from the state highway.

Traffic is sparse. It allows me a peaceful evening stroll. Glorious rays of the setting sun bathing my face. An empty dumper truck comes hurtling from behind. It thunders past raising dust. Then after going for 40-50 meters it takes a sharp turn, comes very near to jump into the agricultural fields by the side, but then regains its trajectory.

My first impulse is that the driver is drunk, which resulted in this risky jerk to the vehicle on the empty road. And I laugh sarcastically, imagining a drunk truck driver so early in the evening when even the sun hasn’t set yet. A drunk driver—we are so quick to form negative opinions and impressions. It would prove to be a wrong impression as I move on.

A snake is coiled a couple of feet into the road from the right side. I look with restrained animation. With his quick and kind awareness the truck driver saved the snake by taking a sharp turn, thus taking a risk on the narrow road—hardly wider than the truck’s width. Instead of a drunk driver, he proves to be a kind, aware, alert human being. I pray for him and his family for this act of kindness. As I come still nearer I see that the snake isn’t moving. But it’s completely unharmed. However, it doesn’t react with the usual panicked agility and scampering nervousness associated with snakes when a human is around.

It’s a red sand boa. The setting sun’s glorious rays shining on its coiled and composed majesty. As I stand just a couple of feet away, it slowly crawls back to the field from where it had come to cross the road to reach the other side. It enters the harvested field and lies still by the narrow field divider. I take a view of the nearby fields on this side. Empty fields, laborers busy in setting thatched huts for winter mushrooms. The other side has a couple of acres of dense growth, wilderness secured with reeds, grasses and bunch grass. It’s uncultivated public land not immediately under the risk of being cleared for some human-centric purpose.

The harmless slow-paced snake, which barely crawls like an earthworm in comparison to other snakes, is trying to reach that bushy lot. The winters are coming and that part being on the southern side will have plenty of sunshine and sufficient hiding space. So I know the snake will definitely try to cross the road again. But it will take a lot of time for it to crawl to safety to that side. And roads are full of careless drivers. Not everybody is as alert as this kind driver. Some even kill snakes knowingly if they see one crossing the road in front of them.

I really like this snake and my first instinct is to put it in a polythene bag and take it home. There is a myth that it’s very auspicious and billionaires pay up to 25 crore rupees to keep it at their homes. Even at my worst I won’t be greedy enough to sell an animal or reptile into captivity. But to be frank I had this instinctive reaction of keeping it at my home. Greed, to be sure. But then I laugh. Happy to be cured of temptation. Everything has been monetized by the mankind. With our new-fangled ideas, the mankind is delusively pursuing an unquenchable thirst, weightily and contemptuously. Aah amorous, elemental evilry!

I take a sad look at the endangered snake. Then I seek out a shisham tree’s branch and touch it softly with its end. It coils itself into a defensive posture. ‘Relax! Don’t worry! It’s Ok!’ I say. Lifting it by putting the branch’s end into its coil, I carry it safely to the dense wilderness on the other side and put it among a thick clump of grasses. Here it can safely pass the coming winter. I feel very happy about helping it to enter a safe zone. But the real hero in the little episode is the truck driver who saved this rare sand boa. Let him be blessed with peace and joy in life!