Creeps and creepers - a snake in my wake

A snake, literally uprooted by the frantic construction activity and the searing heat, found its way up my Madhumalati creeper and into my first floor bedroom sit-out. It first made a light snack out of two new-born bulbul chicks in a nest, and was then planning to possibly lie quietly amongst the freshly watered leaves, ruminating on whatever it is that his species ruminates on, and picking new-born bulbul feathers from its teeth, when it fell into my balcony. Like something out of a bad Ramsay Bros film, it chose the time of 12 midnight to do this. I would have slept right through, and it may have let itself out with a polite excuse me…but that was not to be. My terrier spotted it, barked his head off and held it at bay. For 5-8 minutes, they were both engaged in a mutual détente of sorts – the snake bizarrely buzzing very loudly like a pressure cooker married to a chain saw and spinning in a dervish-like circle, the dog keeping a foot away, and barking like his life depended on it (it did). By the time I could get my feet and vocal chords wide awake, snake and dog were in this awful dance together. I ran down and yelled for help, which came from 4 watchmen from sundry buildings, who asked no questions, managed to move my dog out of the way, delivered 2 whacks and ended the snake’s life. They muttered something about ‘asghar’ and ‘shaitan’ and left with the body before I could even thank them. I took a quick half look at the body, to note the markings, so that later I could ask Mr Khaire of the Katraj Snake Park what this midnight monster was.
I admitted to him with some guilt that the snake didn’t really stand a chance, and that we were all primed to whack first and identify later. However, he assured me that I had done the right thing, because going by my description of the racket it made and its markings, the visssitor was a Russel’s Viper, and it was either him or me or him or my dog. This was from the snake expert himself. He then advised me to cut back the creeper…and that was that. So much for wildlife drama.
The fascinating human drama actually began to unfold when various reactions came in at the news. Two friends from fairly far off, simply showed up at my door step, in the way that good friends have – just to bring their warm presence into your slightly disheveled sense of safety. They also assuaged whatever residual guilt I had about having the creature killed…one even said kindly: You see, he simply had to go to the Great Snake Park in the Sky.
A couple of neighbours, who’d slept through all the commotion at night, continued to sleep walk through the day, refusing to give me eye contact or refer to the snake. One was actually in a thinly-disguised ‘I told you so’ state (I told you not to grow plants, I told you not to sleep with your sit-out door open, and many other I told yous). The other told me 2 days later that uttering the word ‘snake’ (she didn’t utter it, she said s-n-a-k-e, assuming the whole species can’t spell) makes more of them appear, so she didn’t want to talk about it.
A third acquaintance called up and told me how this was nothing, back in Madhya Pradesh (or maybe Assam or maybe Zanzibar) he and his wife have found cobras in their cupboards, kraits in their kitchen, vipers in their vanity case…you get the picture. Basically what he was saying is: my snake story is longer than yours.
Then came the domestic help: it was as if the episode had set off a veritable paroxysm of stories, one gorier than the next. Possibly the worst was one about a python swallowing 1 bakri, horns and all, and 1 child, cricket bat and all. Villagers had to chop this greedy python open and the child was ‘delivered’ alive from it, all covered in blood, like the day he was born. If nothing else, this ghastly picture helped to replace the home-movie in my mind of spinning snake and towering terrier.
As the story spread, several arm chair naturalists called (the kind who have seen it all - on Nat Geo and Discovery of course), to lecture me about how I should have not been in a hurry to have the snake killed, and the appropriate and informed thing to do today is to call the snake park and have them coax it away. I am in Pashan, the park in Katraj, 30 km away; it was 12 midnight, my dog and I were in a 100 sq ft area, up close and personal with what emerged as one of India’s most venomous snakes. But no – from the safety of the armchair, you can preach about having it put in a sack and delivered back unto its natural habitat, while heaven’s choicest blessings rain down gently on the scene below. One rather enthusiastic young environmentalist, quite forgetting that he was talking to an Aunty, even hotly yelled: “So what, it was in your sit-out na, not in your pyjamas?” No doubt, if I had told him it was in my pyjamas, and that’s why it had to be killed in mortal combat, he would have shouted: “So what, it was in your pyjamas, na, not wrapped round your neck…”

An anonymous newcomer from a building that has come up exactly 20 feet from my window, stuck his neck out and said sarcastically the next morning: “Madam your dogs barking too much. We working people, need sleep. Please mind it.” (The assumption being somehow that I don’t work, and that I can go without sleep.) While I took this piece of instruction in, one of the whacking watchmen of the previous night had the presence of mind to ask him in beautifully intoned UP Hindi: “You heard the dog, but you didn’t hear her shouting for help or us 4 men running or that shaitan hissing?” I heard no reply, so I assume he’s still thinking out that one, or may even say: “Kindly repeat the question.”
All in all, we have 2 dead baby birds, 1 dead snake, 1 heroic dog, 4 wonderful watchmen, 1 shaky me, 1 sensible snake expert, 2 robust friends, and a host of humans that could do with being stuffed in a sack and being let out on the outskirts of the city.