November 18, 2024

Towards the late seventies of the last century, I engaged a class of first year degree students for teaching them English language. Strangely and very interestingly, I noticed three students named Sharath, Charles and Surya who showed their interest in animals whenever forests or animals or nature were mentioned from textual matters during the progress of the classes. Sharath’s house was close to mine and one day, he visited me in connection with an English play in which he had a role to act. He wanted to know the pronunciation of some of the words correctly. I had a couple of dogs and two monkeys in a cage within the compound in front of my house. Before meeting me, he had befriended both the sets of animals. The purpose for which he visited me was easily forgotten by him as he was playing in a friendly manner with the animals.

Charles and Sharath with Snakes (File Photo)

Suffice it to say that Sharath brought me two of his friends too, Charles and Surya, who were also in the same class then. All four of us met several times outside the class to have discussions on animals which narrowed down to reptiles and ultimately to snakes.

Sharath, who became a lecturer in a college in Puttur, got his doctorate and works in the US now. Charles is the President of the Animal Care Society of Mangalore. Surya did his research on frogs to get his doctorate and now works as a freelance researcher with the Government of India and Government of Karnataka on projects connected to studies on animals.

The three of them were initiated in becoming friends of snakes by brother Oderic Devanand of the Capuchin Ashram at Farangipete. He was very much interested in snakes and he did have a few of them in his custody. When he was transferred to Goa and the snakes that he had kept had to be given to somebody, he chose the three boys and they approached me to find a place to keep them. A lorry shed in Padil was hired and the snakes were kept there. Thereafter, more snakes were stored in the same place. This was the beginning of their collection of snakes which ultimately resulted in the starting of a snake park at Kadri at the initiative of Mr N. Sampangi, the then Divisional Forest Officer. The snake park received financial support from the Government of Karnataka for its establishment and it was later shifted to the Pilikula Zoo at Moodshedde.

Now to some of the interesting snake stories that happened during those days with three young men as courageous friends who helped Mangaloreans several times.

There were also other students who joined them. Apart from Mangalore, they organised many Snake Exhibitions at different places, like Udupi, Kundapur, Puttur, before starting the Snake Park at Kadri. People used to call one of them whenever they sighted a snake. They would go over to the caller’s houses and catch the snakes from different places. Later when they had a large collection, they would take the snakes to the forest and release them.

Surya with a Baby Python (File Photo)

One student informed one of them that there was a cobra which visited his house every afternoon. It would reach the compound of the house by 02.00 p.m. and leave by 04.00 p.m. He reported the time so very correctly and emphatically as if the snake had fixed its own visiting hours. He told them that his grandmother was alone at home very often and she was afraid that one day the snake may trouble her. So, Charles, Surya and Sharath went with this student who hailed from a village near Bajpe. As they had to move through paddy fields by the time they reached his house, it was already 04.00 p.m. The old day at the house said that the snake had just disappeared five minutes before they reached. The snake kept its time according to her, it seemed.

As the old lady pointed to the place where the snake moved into, they decided to dig the place. After careful work, the snake was noticed, hidden under a piece of large stone and they collected it and before putting it into a cloth bag to carry it to Mangalore, Sharath seriously looked into the underneath of the tail end of the snake and said loudly that it was a female snake. The old lady put both her hands on her head and shrieked. She said loudly that if so, the male would come and it might take revenge on her for catching its female. They tried to console her by telling her that snakes did not have permanent pairing and that they did not live in pairs. But she was doubly sure that they would come and take vengeance on her.

Before moving out from the house compound, suddenly Surya said that he had noticed another snake moving and getting under a firewood stack. They didn’t have any other choice except to remove the firewood fully, a hard task indeed which took time, only to find the snake which tried to escape. Sharath caught it and between he and Surya put it in yet another cloth bag before which Sharath did the usual thing of examining the snake. He examined the tail end and shouted that that snake was a female one. The old lady put her hand on her head and exclaimed, that in that case two male snakes would come. No assurance from them would convince her. So one of the two went near Sharath asked him to show him the underside of the tail end, looked at it and he said that it was a male snake and scolded Sharath for making a mistake even when he was doubly sure that it was also a female snake. Sharath looked at him with surprise as he knew that he was not making any mistake. One of his two friends stamped him on his foot and looked at him sternly and he was intelligent enough to catch the message. He expressed his regrets and agreed that it was a male snake to the great relief of the old lady. They departed from there after assuring the lady that no snake would come to that house again because the pair of male and female had been caught, but they were sure that there could be a possibility yet another snake creeping in there.

A Cobra in a Box (File Photo)

Konchady Postmaster had a strange visitor in his office and it decided to settle down on his table. When he entered the room after opening it, the cobra stood up and showed its spread hood. Shocked and terribly afraid, he came out of the room and consulted somebody who managed to get the young people to visit his office. The moment the door of the post office was opened, the snake would stand up, spreading its hood. Once they moved out, it would settle down into a coil. It wasn’t much of a job for the young men to catch it because it was on top of a table and was in a coil.

Similarly, one of the young men had a call from a small hotel at Bhavanthi Street. The cobra had settled down in a large Bournvita tin, such tins were available then though not available now. Whenever somebody entered the room, it would stand up, raising its hood and once the person went out and nobody was around, it would settle down into the tin. They went there and collected the snake which was a very simple job. Discovering the lid of the tin on a table nearby next to the tin itself they very carefully walked in without making any noise from stamping on the floor avoiding the cause for any vibration which would be picked up by the snake. They closed the lid and did the job of catching it rather easily.

Once there was a call from a house in Bondel. Only two of them were available and both went there and noticed that the snake that they had referred to was a huge python. It had coiled itself and despite the local people throwing stones at it, did not move out though it moved its coil once or twice. Catching a python is a different game because of its size and weight. They were only two and in such instances people come around to watch but hardly ever come near to help. Charles very carefully caught its tail and pulled it so that they could see the head and catch the head. It was only then they noticed that the snake had a plastic rope jetting out from its mouth. In a few seconds, the python uncoiled itself and regurgitated, the process that reptiles use to escape by vomiting whatever they would have swallowed. A chicken, fairly big, in a tube format, full with feathers, was what the snake threw up. The remaining part of the plastic rope also came out. While Charles caught the python’s head, some of the spectators who picked enough courage came closer to him and the snake was safely put into a gunny bag and taken to the snake den.

In a house in Carstreet, there was a baby in a cloth cradle that hung from the roof and underneath that there was a cobra. When the team walked in, though very carefully without making any stamping movement, the snake escaped into the cloth stack and many other utensils which were kept in the corner of the room. It was a difficult task because the baby could not be disturbed and no one was willing to enter the room to take the baby because they were afraid that the snake might appear from any corner. It took considerable time to take every piece of article in the room outside. Sharath, Charles and Surya made a beeline and passed all the items outside, at the end of which the cobra stood up spreading its hood in one area where some clothes were stacked up which was within three feet of the cradle in which the child was sleeping. They caught the snake and as they were holding it, they had to have a bag to keep it in. As they did not have any bag with them, they used a banyan which they took from the cloth stack, tied one end of it with a piece of string and deposited the snake in it and tied the top opening of the banyan and carried the snake away. All the while the child was sleeping comfortably in the cradle and the women outside had a sigh of relief after the snake was caught.

One can write more number of snake stories and the adventures of the three young students. Once the Snake Park at Kadri was established, there were continuous visitors and some of the volunteering students gave them necessary explanations. All the while, people of Mangalore learnt that they could stay away from killing snakes. A Snake Park was established and subsequently transferred to Pilikula and attracted lots of people. It is an attraction even now. An awareness that snakes need not be killed and that they have no vengeance against the humans and that they bite people only when they are pained or afraid, reached many people through the efforts of the three young men then who are now in their sixties, Sharath, Charles and Surya, with their dedication to the cause of love of animals, indeed pure and simple.