I have known revulsion, abhorrence, plain fear and awe when I watch on National Geographic and other TV channels, men like Steve Irwin , Romulus Whitaker and Austin Stevens handle and fondle serpents as toddlers would do to toys. The thought of the very prospect of seeing them live naturally would send shivers up my spine and my heart palpitate. I see them often at night by the head light of my car when I drive back home. Wriggling fast across the road (the drive from where I work to my house is through a lonely stretch of road with undergrowth on either side).I often see them run over and lying mutilated on the road. Even the sight of their mauled and mangled sinews life less on the road would send shivers though I m well cocooned in my car. One late evening coming back home I stopped the car and opened the gate. I bend down to pull of the latch and I virtually froze as there down a few inches from my outstretched palm was a colourful coil, moving slowly when disturbed by the light of the car and the movement of the gate. It was a Russell ’s viper, common around the place I live. I stood frozen in fear and for it to move away .And it took a while, as Vipers are tortoise like when it comes to moving about, though they being ambush predators strike very swiftly.
I can vividly recollect the utter repulsion I felt, nausea as well, after watching the movie ‘SSSssss snake’.
So is my fear of snakes, and determination to keep as far away from one if I notice one around, is unbound.
A couple of months ago I, C and R went to the Mannarasala temple after exhortation from a few people of piety. The abode of the Snake gods and goddesses! That was my first ever experience of the temple dedicated to serpents. Eerie was the feeling. My fear of snakes that developed from nascent days added to the eeriness. And I bore with me stories and legends of lore about the temple and its serpent gods that were spun for me by my grandmothers from the time I was little. I left the temple hoping that I invoked the serpent Gods to my well being.
A few days ago a friend who considers everything supernatural to be determining the odds for and against him sent to us a septuagenarian gentleman. I feel now that he was aptly named ‘Naga Sabapathy’ He visited the place we live and went around the house and the outside in a sort of deep observation. After a few minutes he sat down and began to talk. He made some statements from my personal history and also C’s. He spoke about a sacred grove near the place I lived when I was little. He asked if we ever killed a serpent (he referred to the Cobra) a few years ago at the place we now lived. We answered in the negative and told him we have not seen one yet around here. He then went on to say it could be somebody who must have done, but the damage of the act might touch us in many ways.We are afflicted by 'sarpa dosham'( curse of the serpents).
Ara was keenly watching him and the discussion. Later that evening when we were sitting together he had these few questions directed at me.
The gentleman was only referring and gesticulating about snakes with hood, is it that in his encyclopaedia of the genesis of serpents other species of snakes do not matter or doesn’t exist. It is well known that there are many other species of snakes that are more venomous and dangerous than the cobra. Then why is this consternation about the poor cobra alone?
And what reason is it that if someone, we are not aware of or known to us killed a serpent some time in the past and the malediction befall us?
I wonder if I must direct this incertitude to the gentleman if he returns.
4 comments:
ha ha that was a fun read and yes I agree ...snakes are scaaaaaaaary!
Can't stand any form of reptile. You managed to keep your cool (or did you actually freeze?) in spite of an eye-to-eye meeting with the viper!
Belief / Faith when questioned could get complex. It's best left where we can't comprehend it any further.
Snakes!! I have had considerable number of encounters with snakes. A very close one with the cobra as a kid. The area around our house had lot of burrows and I do remember snakes dangling from the ceiling of my hall, a cobra with its hood high right next to me while I was obliviously playing outside.
You brought up an interesting aspect. Why only the cobra? Why arent other snakes or for that matter reptiles, associated with faith? We should leave the poor thing alone as it left me and I left it; as a kid :-)
In the early 60s I used to visit my friend, whose house was on the outskirts of Chennai. This place was full of bushes and trees and no family staying within a km of their house. One day they saw a cobra near to toilet outside the house. They called a snake-catcher. He came and in a few minutes knew where the cobra was. He put his hand in hole and pulled out a big cobra. Must have been about nearly 5 feet and olive green in color.
As his dhoti was loose, he put the cobra on the ground with either leg near its head and tail. We were all about two or three feet away. You can imagine our fear when he put the serpent under his foot. If it escaped, we WOULDN'T have escaped its attention !!!
On another occasion when I was going to college by bus, there was big crowd near the bridge over the Cooum River, near Handloom House in Egmore. There were two cobras entwined with each other on the river bank. We watched it for a short time and the bus moved on.
Then I have met the other type of snake. It is also known as "snake-in-the-grass". These are of the two-legged variety, which many of us would have come across in our journey through life !!!
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