Scraps Stuffs - Random musings from apun ka desh

We had the first "real monsoon rains" yesterday. It rained a whole lot in the afternoon and in the evening. Towards about 7.30 pm I heard a voice outside my house yelling that a cobra was loose outside and then I heard another neighbour, formerly in the army, enquire about this. I had a real fear that they would all try to kill the poor snake so I ran out. Sure enough there was a three and a half feet long cobra in the gutter and the guy who came across the snake said that it was crossing the road in front of him. He sure was lucky not to have been bitten because as usual there was no power supply and the street was dark. The house right next door doesn't have a UPS, so there was no light coming from its windows as well.

Another neighbour came out and started saying that it would be best to kill the snake as he had children! Idiot!

I called Saleem Hameed to ask him if he could catch the snake because if it was not caught it was sure to be beaten to death. Saleem was stuck in Bannerghata and couldn't make it so he gave me another number to call, which I did. Tarun, very kindly, agreed to come at once. He got there in about half an hour, in his dad's borrowed Santro and promptly caught the agitated snake - we didn't allow the snake to move much since we didn't want to lose sight of it - in an empty pillow cover and tied it up with a piece of ribbon. Good job!

Apparently snakes shouldn't be caught and then released in an area alien to them. This is something I agree with completely - snakes should be left well enough alone unless they enter a house. The recent heavy rains might have flooded its burrow forcing it out and on the street.

This cobra was a very beautiful creature and I'm glad he wasn't harmed.