Snakes,Nagpanchami & Blessings --

I have many times narrow escapes from snakes. This is the incident of 8th September 2012. I still remember this date because I had shared my experience on face book timeline immediately after the incident. During that time, I was working as a consultant for an N.G.O and staying in their campus. The N.G.O was situated at Kamlapur, around 200 km from Hyderabad .The campus had few office buildings, few quarters for staffs and many well-furnished rooms for participants who used to come there for training / workshop/ meetings/ any other purposes. There were many trees, brushes in the campus and it had well maintained garden too. There was a mess in the campus that used to function every day except Sunday. Expect me (alone consultant / Rural Development professional from Hyderabad ); all the staffs of the N.G.O were local. They used to leave the campus on Saturday evening and would come back on Monday morning. The campus of the N.G.O was almost two kilometers far away from residential area of the village.


It was Sunday night and that weekend I was alone in the campus. In evening, I had gone outside and had heavy meal. I purchased few packets of snacks and a tetra pack of fruit juice and kept in the cupboard that was at the corner of the room. That night, around 11 pm, I was chatting with a face book friend. Meanwhile I felt a bit hungry and I went to cupboard and opened it. The moment I opened the cupboard, something fell on my right hand. I jerked my hand and felt something creeping on ground .After 15 second; I realized that it was a snake. After seeing the snake, I got very frightened. I started screaming .By that time, the snake again entered into the drawer of the cupboard. I was at my wit’s end, what to do. Then I called a staff that was staying in the village two kilometer far away from there. He telephoned the guards of the campus. Two guards came with sticks to my room that night only. They very adroitly compelled the snake to come out of the cupboard then they killed it. They threw the dead snake out of the room but I was very frightened internally. The blood and some part of flesh were still visible on the floor. I checked cupboard again and saw shedded skin (scales) of the snake. The snake was living in the cupboard from long time. After the incident, I locked that cupboard and never used it.








Snake that was in cupboard


In November 2012, I had gone to Kadri block of Ananthpur district. I was in the field, discussing with a farmer about interventions done by government and private agency in that area. Meanwhile, resource person who had come along with me saw a snake just behind me. He screamed and hearing him when I turned back I saw a snake. Without wasting anytime, he picked up a big stone and threw over the snake. The snake came under the stone and it could not move from there. Even though I was frightened, I took out the mobile from my pocket and took a snap. Later he killed the snake. I had narrow escape from it.









Snake under the stone





Around two and half years back, I was in Kadapa district, for visiting watershed intervention area. I along with resource person was climbing the ridge area of the watershed. The area was full of brushes and grass. I was climbing, talking with resource person without keeping my eyes on the ground. Suddenly the resource person pulled me back and I saw a snake vanished in the brushes. If he had not pulled me, I would have stepped over the snake and that was a cobra snake.



These three incidents took place in recent past but I had narrow escape from the snake earlier too. One when I was a kid, second time when I was in intermediate.


My mother believes that those who worship Nagraj (king of snake- Cobra) on Nagpanchami, Snakes never harm them and they get blessing from the Nagraj. She may miss to remind me any other festival but she never forgets to inform me about the date of the festival Nagpanchami, what to eat and what to avoid on the day and what rituals to be done to celebrate the festival. Though I do not do any rituals to celebrate it but I observe the festival and love eating dudh lava (milk & puffed rice). Hope, Nagdev will keep blessing me in future too as he has blessed me so far.

~~~ Ramanuj Dubey