Snakes and Me!

I am currently reading this very entertaining book, "The snakebite survivors club". No, I am not one of them. Bur, to be fair I have come very close to be a member of it.

Having grown up in India, I have some snake encounters up my sleeve (pun intended). Well I haven't seen an India who doesn't have a Cobra story or two, real or made-up.

When I was a little kid, One late evening I came home after playing cricket. "Don't even think of stepping into the Kitchen" My mum screamed from kitchen without turning to look at me. I am amazed at her power of sensing before hand what I am going to do, even before I think of it. "Go and take a bath first" she said stirring something. It smelled really good. We had our bathroom outside the house. It was a room constructed outside the house. Most of the older houses were constructed with bathrooms separated from the main house, as they were considered unclean.

I went into the bathroom. it was a damp and dark place. It had a small 40 watt bulb in it. I switched on the light. "I cant see anything in this hole" I muttered to myself. We had to fill a bucket of water from a slowly dripping faucet and then use the water to take a bath. "Where the hell is the bucket"? I asked aloud, as if the broom in the corner would answer my question.


I looked around, and I found it in a dark corner. I went and picked it up. I could never forget what happened next. My worst nightmare came true. I heard a hissing sound and saw something yellow under the bucket. That's it I My heart stopped beating! I threw the bucket on the yellow hissing thing and ran out of the washroom screaming.

Thankfully, both for the public and me, I was not totally in state of full undress. My dad then went into the washroom with a big stick and powerful flashlight. He didn't find the yellow hissing thing. He searched the whole damn bathroom for more than an hour. "You Must have dreamt about it" he teased me. He thinks that I am wussy. "Ya sure I was dreaming in that ****hole" I thought of answering him back, but the precedences urged me earnestly, "DON'T ANSWER BACK!!" I swallowed my pride and went back in to the wash room with that big flash light.

I think the snake in the washrom that day is the common tree sanke, which is very common in India.


The commmon Indian Tree snake

I have encountered snakes very closely in couple of instances. I will write about them later.