COILING DREAMS

I tossed and turned as I tried to sleep. Memories that I had buried deep within me were bursting through my consciousness. A kind of fear always engulfs me, whenever I hear something about snakes. Once, in my childhood, I encountered a snake and was saved within a few inches distance.

Before I plunge in to that, let me tell you something, which I would like to describe as, the most important of the least important things. It was a wonderful Saturday. After the strenuous hard work of long five days in school, the much-awaited weekend has come. It is very difficult to wake up early on a school day. But on weekends we were the early birds. We will wake up before the sun comes. I opened my eyes with great excitement.  Straight out of the bed, I tiptoed to the window and slowly opened it. The cool air of the last night’s rain hit my face. It is really a pleasant experience to breath in the freshness of the new day. I blinked my eyes to see the beauty. What a precious privilege to perceive the pristine beauty of dewdrops on every grass! Good gracious! Each drop has a heaven within it.

‘Just one more second to go, then I will cut you,’ I said. It was our favourite game. On rainy season, the most beautiful thing that we can see outside is the green velvety moss that comes on top of all the walls. Some of them will have a seed head. We would collect as many of them as we could and start playing tug of war with it. We would hook the heads together and pull each other to cut the heads. Whoever cut the most would be the winner. Childhood is a period in everyman’s life, which provides many unforgettable moments.

Those days we had no laptops, no tablets or no smart phones to play with. However, we were not in short of activities. Our courtyard was full of adventures. We would roam around plucking mangoes and guavas. We had a guava tree, which bore very tasty guavas. The long and the short of the matter was that we had to climb the wall near it, to pluck the fruits. It was a small wall. We would pile a few bricks near it. And from there we could easily climb on to the wall. The challenge was to pluck the ripe guavas, without disturbing the bees, who were resting peacefully in the beehives at the topmost branch of the tree. I remember that one day a branch fell from the tree. It was the one carrying the beehive.  We were so curious to see how it looked like and ran towards it. Fortunately, there were no bees near it. May be that great fall from the top of the tree have driven the bees away. It was a big comb fully loaded with honey but partly damaged by that great fall. We took it inside with much curiosity and turned it many times to see the intricate structure of the bee house. How captivating! We were fallen by the mere sight of it. But the thing that captured us more was the taste of the pure honey which we squeezed out from the comb.

Nothing can beat its taste. If anything could, it would be the sweet yellow mangoes on our old mango tree, which was one of its kind. And there was no other mango I had tasted sweeter than that. To get those mangoes, again we have to rely on the walls. From there only we could hit it down with the help of a long stick. Then it would fall to the heap of sand underneath without any damage. Amidst all these fun, one day something unexpected happened.

We will never listen to an advice unless and until we come to see the end of it.  Once we decided to clean up a corner of our courtyard. There was a heap of gravel near the courtyard wall, beside the front gate. It was untouched for a long period and mixed with soil, dry leaves and all sort of things. It was our usual time pass to stand on the gate and swing back and forth. But when the gate reaches near the wall, it hits on the heap of gravel and stops. It was a kind of obstacle for us. Therefore, we decided to clean up the place. At first, we separated the gravel with a small stick. Later we threw away the sticks and used our hands to separate each stone. Since we were tired of picking up by our hands, we used our toes to do the rest of the work. All of a sudden, my brother said ‘Stop’. I did not hear it properly. The place was very noisy as the other side of the wall was a busy road. Therefore, his voice was not audible. I thought he might have commented on something else and decided to resume the work. I raised my leg forward to pick the gravel again, but with a quick movement, he pushed me back. I was on the verge of falling down. Taken aback by this unexpected turn of events, I asked, ‘Why did you hit me?’ But, he was not listening to me. He said ‘Move back’, while his eyes seriously fixed on something and gestured me to wait. I understood, something was lying there in between the rocks. It was a snake! What would have happened, if I had extended my legs a little more? I shuddered at the thought. If I had awakened the beast, it would have retaliated. In fact, I could not identify the snake at first as it laid there without any movement, brilliantly camouflaged among those rocks. It looked exactly like, a few rocks kept together. If he didn’t push me back, my life would have been in danger. We didn’t know which snake it was. However, it was deep black in colour and was very slow in movement, which clearly showed us the fact, that it was a venomous snake. The impact of that shock was great on me.  At this juncture, I cannot restrict myself from telling you something. That was a real comedy, which happened a few months later. Somehow, we had completely recovered from that shock and obviously, that was just a single snake, that too lying there without any movement. But what if we see a lot of snakes wriggling together?

One day a snake charmer came to our house. He said he would catch snakes.  After that snake incident, we could not go about freely as we did before. In order to make sure the safety, my father thought of trying a chance. So that the children could move about without any fear. First, the snake charmer fixed his deal. If he found any snake, we had to pay a certain amount of money. He would catch it and take it with him. We agreed.

 At first, children were taken inside. Then, all the doors and windows closed. Therefore, we could not see anything and we waited there for a long while inside. Time stagnated. Later, we got an idea of what happened there, from my father’s narration of the whole story. After sometime, we saw our father coming inside, along with our neighbour. They were talking with each other raising their hands and roaring with laughter. Things went like this. The snake charmer went over here and there, skeptically looking for any snake. A little later, he came back with a grave face and told my father that it would be hard. Then my father said, ‘Oh! If it is hard to find one, then leave it. We already knew that there is none. I just asked you to search. No problem.’ Then he exclaimed, ‘But, Sir, I said it is hard to catch them. There are many. What I found is a whole family.’ My father’s eyes twinkled with astonishment. He countered, ‘How come? It’s impossible. I can’t believe this.’ The snake charmer said as if so concerned, ‘Sir, don’t make any noise. I will do it. But…’ My father asked, ‘But, what? What is it?’ Then the man said, ‘Sir, I will reduce the amount for you. But you have to pay for each one of them.’ My father was still in that shock, standing there with his hands on his head. Yet, he could not believe that those many snakes resided there. At that time, our neighbour came running to our house, gesturing with his hands, ‘Don’t give, don’t give.’ He was panting as he arrived at the gate. He called my father aside and told, ‘Don’t give any money. He is bluffing. Another man came to us. They are a group and it’s a plot. My grandfather found out this. While one person fixes the deal with us, the other one takes the snakes carefully from his bag and keeps them in a safe place in our compound. What particularly took my fancy was that the snakes were not moving away from the place where they were kept. Then I thought that those snakes would have been tamed and even familiarised by the human presence. Even if we ask them to kill the snake, they are not ready to do it. Haven’t you noticed?  They will only catch it and take it with them. Because it is their snake.’ When they returned, the snake charmer was still standing there. It is true, he can’t go without the snakes. The man thought they were coming to ask for a reduction in the money. Then my father said, ‘We don’t want to catch them. Leave it there.’ The snake charmer stammered, ‘b b b but, Sir…’ He was in trouble. He understood that things had run out of his hands. Then my father said, ‘Catch your snakes and go. We know you are struggling for your livelihood.’ And they settled the deal peacefully.

Then our father told us that, ‘the snake charmer had kept the snakes inside a hollow rod which was lying there near the wall. And when he called, it was quite surprising to see that, how obediently they came out! He then opened a basket which he took from his bag and placed the snakes safely in it. He took out another basket and as he opened it, we saw, more snakes. He showed us different types of snakes, while describing their peculiar features and said that they were harmless, as they had removed their teeth and venom. After that he took his basket and bag and left immediately.’  We really visualised the whole story from our father’s narration. Apparently, our surprise knows no bounds. In fact, the image of the snakes was haunting and it frightened us. Seeing our troubled face, our neighbour quipped a joke, ‘we haven’t seen these many snakes even in a snake museum.’ We all laughed at the funny turn of events.