More about Snakes

Sreekumar K

We, in Kerala, are rain people. We think in terms of rain, rivers, flood and very recently, drought. When we say drought, we don’t mean what they mean in the central plains of India. Our childhood was drenched, dripping and soggy wet.

My family lived on a hillside. The nearest stream, a muddy one, was only a kilometre away. It was in that stream that the beauty of nudity was first revealed to me. I was allowed to go there only in summer and I loved it even though it was only a foot deep in most places. The only spot we could go in for a dip was where it took a turn forming a baby eddy.

My family managed with an unnecessary deep well we had in the back yard. But that was only for six months. Fr the next six moths, from November till June, we carried water uphill in all the big and small kitchen vessels we had from a deserted well at the foot of the hill. As we walked uphill with that dancing load on our shoulders and head, we got drenched in water and in those summer months in was such a joy. When it rained in monsoon, that is in June, water stayed for a day in our front yard making the ground soft and slippery. Indoors, with all the doors and windows tight shut making it pretty dark any time of the day, we cuddled in our bed with millions of tiny arrows of water getting in through the chinks in the roof tiles. It was so much fun to hug one another tight under the woolen sheets and not even go for food when it was ready. The monsoon is supposed to be months of famine. Vishakham Thirunal, a good king who ruled us a century ago had brought jack fruit and tapioca from abroad. Today, added with our mangoes, they make our famine month fabulous with dishes.

When I grew up I suggested to my father that we should go live near some river, there are 44 four of them slicing our state in less that 700 kilometres. So, every 20 kilometres along Kerala coast, you are sure to cross a bridge! They have been flowing on and on telling stories and making their banks beautiful for ages. They used to be wider long ago but now none of them is more than a few hundred metres in width.

My father steadily refused. I pushed as much as a son could but to no effect at all.

It was then that I got a job in a school in a village near the foot hills of Sabarimala, a pilgrimage hill station. The school overlooked a river which runs in the veins of every one in that village. It is one of the holy rivers which only means that around the pilgrimage season, it is a sewer canal.

I accepted the job. In a year I got married and took my parents and my wife to stay with me near the school.

Expectedly, my father liked the place a lot. The river flooded every year soon after monsoon. Till my father totally lost his memory and didn’t care for anything, he used to go all over the paddy fields to see and enjoy the marvellous flood. The river practically flowed through every house around that time. For us, the nights were a little scary, we were not sure where to go if the river flooded further at night. My mother could not walk. We sat or slept on stacked beds, desks and the dining table while tortoises, scorpions and snakes moved around in the knee deep water just below us. We could see the happy village men going around in boats, plucking coconuts from anyone’s property, water had reached that high.

One afternoon, when the flood receded, we saw a young viper in the kitchen. Everyone was for killing it, since vipers are the most dangerous snakes, though not the most venomous ones. The problem with them is that they are lazy and won’t move away. We step on them and they bite us and we die from our arteries popping open.

I let it go and chased it away.

The next day, I was standing near a canal that crossed the rubber plantation behind our house. It was a cemented irrigation canal, the water was knee deep. Having nothing better to do, I decided to remove the dry leaves in the canal since they were blocking the free flow of water. I used a pole to do that. It didn't work very well. The glass smooth bamboo did scoop the leaves in water, but let them slip off as I pulled it out of water. I thought of leaving the pole and using my hands to remove the leaves. I looked at my hands and stared into the water which was dark brown. It also had a certain stench which prevented me from dipping my hands in it. And who knew what was in there? Scorpions for sure.

I dropped the idea, lifted the pole and dipped it in water. It collected leaves and this time probably a lot of dirt and leaves. It was so heavy.

With so much difficulty, I yanked it out of water, the sudden movement splattering some of that dirty water on me.

And on the tip of the bamboo pole, coiled around it snugly, was the second largest viper I ever saw in my life. (The largest I saw was near Bhimashankar in Pure, one that stretched across the road like a python.) I shook it wild and it slowly started to unwind. I put down the pole. Like a speckled band, the long and cream-coloured flabby mass with plant like designs on its back, unwound itself and slithered away into the rubber plantation.

Even today I am happy about the two decisions. One decision to let the baby go and the second decision not to put my hands in that dirty water.

Recently the whole place went under a huge deluge making several villages look like one big ocean. I went to visit the place and take part in the relief activities. The streams and the river would have been in hellish fury, for they have gouged away the banks with the power of a million machines.