Our Wildlife 1

On the other side of our street is empty land which used to be a marshy backwater, part of the Adyar River estuary. A couple of years ago the thorny bushes were cut down, the land filled with truckloads of dirt - though it still floods when it rains - and ugly cement-block walls were built around it. Then nothing happened. Now work has started on the lot just east of our house, and as a result, snakes which had been living there crossed the street and moved into our gardens.

First Mary told me that a big black snake, longer than her arm, had taken up residence in the rocks in one corner. She said it was poisonous. I asked, "What shall we do about it?" She said, "You can't do anything, they move so fast. And every compound on this street has a snake now."

A couple of days later, she and Lakshmi came to show me a translucent snakeskin which the gardener had found. This happens once in awhile, and it wasn't all that big, but Mary said it was a cobra - a nalla paambu, 'Good Snake.' I looked at the skin doubtfully. The head was normal-sized - wouldn't the shed skin have to flare to accommodate the cobra's flaring hood? But Mary said, "Look, it has the naamam." The naamam is the mark that worshippers of Vishnu wear on their foreheads; the mark on the cobra's head apparently makes it a Vaishnava. (Lord Vishnu reclines on a bed made of the coiled body of the giant cobra Adisesha, its hood shading Vishnu's head like a canopy - so maybe cobras really are Vaishnavas...) I looked at the snakeskin and saw a brown smudge from eyeholes to nostrils, but I still had my doubts.

Then, yesterday, Lakshmi told me that a brown water snake had moved into the atrium - the center of the house, where there are plants and a shallow fish pond. The fish are muddy brown, undistinguished fish that an earlier gardener had brought in from the now-vanished backwater across the street. I had been pretending that our fish were the last remnants of an extinct, though undistinguished, species. Lakshmi said the water snake was not poisonous, and that it was a kutti, a baby.

All the exciting things, as usual, have happened offstage. I haven't seen a snake, not even the one inside the house (I wonder how long it takes for snake-kuttis to grow up). In the night, when I walk throught the atrium, I hear a plop in the water, and wonder if the snake is having dinner.


Srinivasan the cable TV guy came to collect the monthly rental, and to talk about the new set-top boxes which the central Government, in its wisdom, has decreed that its citizens must have. Fortunately, India has no other problems, so the Government has time to spend on deciding the cable TV access system, which has been on the front page of the newspapers almost every day lately...

Anyway, what struck me was that Srinivasan said, "Even people who live in a hut without water, a sewage connection or electricity have a TV, a cable connection, and a rechargeable battery the size of a car battery. The monthly cable fee is Rs. 200-250. Once a week they pay Rs. 25 to recharge the battery. No water, no electricity, no food, no problem - but television is a must."


The Indian Blog Mela, a periodic showcase of what Indian bloggers are writing about, has kindly included me in the current round. Among the interesting articles is one about Indian Jews in Israel.