What Floats And Slithers

On a morning last week, when I got to the farm, Arul took me to the underground sump tank and invited me to look inside. As I peered through square opening of the tank I could see a slim snake in the water with its head sticking above water. It seemed to have been there all night and dining on the little frogs in the tank.  It obviously couldn’t climb out of the tank since the water level was too low.

Arul is a friend who sometimes stays on our neighbour’s farm. Knowing Abhi’s interest in snakes, he insisted that I call Abhi to come and take a look at the floating creature. When I came home and broke the news, both Abhi and Aparna couldn’t wait to get to the farm. They shoved the last bits of breakfast into their mouths and packed a snake hook (made by Abhi, a simple blunt hook attached to the end of a three foot bamboo stick) and a camera.

We rushed back to the farm and got to business right away. Abhi said, “It is one of the Big Fours, one of the most venomous snakes in India – the common Krait”. He later added, “It has white bands on its black body and the head doesn’t have bands. It can swim, so it is safe here. It seems to like the place since it is cool and provides food. It is nocturnal and so wouldn’t want to leave this place now.” Aparna nodded approvingly.

We had rice transplanting happening at the farm that day. There were labourers at work. We decided not to talk about the snake since they would immediately want to kill it. We decided to leave the snake undisturbed in the water since it was not posing an immediate threat to us. We also agreed on attending to it once the workers left. A couple of times during the day I spotted the kids visiting the tank to take to look at the Krait. I was staying alert all the while to make sure they knew their limits.

After the workers left and as the day started cooling down a bit, Arul, Abhi and Dev decided to do the rescue. (Aparna meanwhile was talking with Dev to ensure that Abhi wasn’t going to be allowed to take any serious risks.) Their initial ideas of using a sack with long sticks and of using a bucket got ruled out for safety reasons. Both the sack and the bucket at hand were not deep enough to contain the snake. But perhaps a water barrel might do the trick. So while Aparna and I stood watching, the three got to work.

Using a rope Arul lowered a 200 litre plastic barrel into the water. He got it to float horizontally with its open mouth approaching the snake. Just at this moment Arul decided that it would help to fill the barrel with a little water. As he was letting some water into the barrel, he asked Abhi to goad the snake into the barrel. The Krait was comfortably coiled around a ledge when Abhi nudged it with the snake-hook. Meanwhile a lot of water was entering the barrel and while Arul was trying to empty it, the barrel started to spin slowly and it got difficult to manage. I suddenly heard Abhi cry out, “IT IS CLIMBING!”

The next thing I saw was the Krait lying on the ground, about two meters from us. The frozen snake  took several seconds to find its bearing before slithering into a nearby Calotropis bush. I later came to know what had actually happened.

Because Abhi thought the snake was attempting to climb the snake-hook, he panicked and instead of letting go of the stick, he drew it out of the tank. So the snake-hook, with the snake attached, was flung up and to the side, while Abhi ran in the opposite direction. Thankfully, the arc of the serpent’s flight managed to avoid Arul who was right alongside ministering the barrel. 

On retrospection we realized that it was a bad idea to try to fill the barrel and to have had too short a pole attached to the snake-hook. 

-- Hema