Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Snake Eats Rat Snake – Snake vs Snake

The same pattern repeated when I walked through the lush green lawns of Raj Bhavan – every creature on twos and fours was sauntering toward us like a moth to a flame, some woofing, some mewing, others quacking and grunting gleefully, as if to exchange pleasantries. Both times, I was walking besides Gargi Vijayaraghavan, environmentalist and lover of all things furry. But what I was most awestruck by was her monomania with arguably the most fearsome reptile that crawls the earth – snakes.“My father used to tell me, even when I was young enough to be riding piggy back on him that while other children learned A for Apple and B for Ball, I learned A for Animals and B for Birds! My oldest memory is of a day when I was crying because a snake had entered my room and was caught and taken away by my father, who is a veteran snake rescuer. He started to console me by asking me not to be afraid, only to discover that I was crying because I didn’t get a chance to play with the snake! I wanted that snake as a pet. I was very fascinated.” Gargi, 22, grew up in BARC colony, which is on the outskirts of Mumbai, and is nothing like the concrete jungle that is rest of the city. While most of our instincts would be to sprint in the opposite direction upon sighting a snake, three-year-old Gargi would automatically want to go near it and pet it, as if to want to get to know them. -