The Tryst With A Snake

Being the sort of family that would rather walk in the dark than waste a phone’s charge, I grew up to be fairly and well, to put it simply, stingy And I would soon come to regret it on the eve of 20 th May. It was raining quite heavily that late afternoon and pretty soon the electricity went off.

To me, there is nothing more relaxing and soothing than a good old shower and a cup of bournvita. I believe ‘tea on a rainy day’ to be highly overrated these days. How could it not be? With all the poets and authors of millennial India broadcasting the very concept of chai on a rainy day?

As I was relishing my beverage, my mother called me to do an errand for her. She is the kind of person who doesn’t like being disobeyed or being talked back to. I think it should suffice to say that she is well and superbly terrifying. To make this statement more concrete I would also like to notify that she is a high school MATHEMATICS teacher.

Voyaging back to our tale, the errand I had mentioned was to go out and send a voice note to my dad as internet signals weren’t good inside the house. I went out, and witnessing the splendor of the truly beautifully moonlit starry spheres above made me feel jubilant. After sending the message I didn’t feel the need to switch my torch on. I walked back to my house and attempted to close the door behind me. However I was not able to close as something small and rubbery was stuck between the doors.

Thinking it to be the doormat I gently pushed the mat away a bit with my foot, and tried to close it again to no avail. This time, I flashed my torchlight onto the hinges, and low and behold! There was a viper crushed partially by the door. The slithering fiend was seemingly poised to attack. Frozen in shock, the only thing I could manage to do was to

yell for my mom. Surprised and probably annoyed at first, my mom and my sis came running. After experiencing the initial shock and horror, they soon got over their fear and analyzed the situation. The only reason to keep calm was the fact that it was harmless at the moment, as I had unknowingly incapacitated it while trying to close the door. Luckily, some old age wisdom struck our minds; we poured some kerosene over

it. Then, Mom picked it up with a stick and threw it out to the courtyard.

Armed with plenty of rocks and a stick, the two of us made our way out. After a series of events leading to the untimely demise of the snake, we went on with our lives as if nothing of the sort happened. And that there, is something you’ll only see in a desi home – we eat this stuff for breakfast. An interesting fact that I would like to bring to mind is that NO ONE, NOT EVEN MY OWN MOTHER, asked me if I had been bitten by the snake. I suppose that too, is a feature of Indian homes.