snake snake

Snake! Snake!
“Super veteran woman ” has a nice ring to it. In athletic jargon it means that you are over 50 and not yet ready to hang up your jogging shoes. (It does not mean you are superwoman- even though you would like to be!)
I found that no one (in that category) was really interested in representing the district let alone the state or country. I had found a nice little niche for myself.
I hired a trainer (he was national level hammer throw champion) and unable to decide on an event bought a discus, javelin and hammer.
All this equipment sat under the stairs, and I religiously took it and went for training once a week.
Perhaps it was the fact that the discus went into corners of the compound I had never noticed before, perhaps it was fate—anyway while flinging it around, I saw a termite mound, and ,peeping out of one of the ridges, the black beedy eyes of a snake.
“Santosh” I called to the trainer, “there is a snake here.”
It took that opportune moment to burrow itself into the mound.
“There is no snake. You must concentrate on your hand eye co-ordination.”
How could I. One eye developed a will of its own, refused to obey my command, and kept rolling to the termite mound.
Santosh was beginning to get exasperated.
“You have to throw in the area. Otherwise you will be disqualified. Look here”.
He marked a large V shaped area going dangerously near the snake.
The training session was a disaster.
My mother-in- law called later that day.
“Ma”, I said “there is a snake in the garden.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “we Jacobites have a solution for that”.
Since I was a Jacobite by default (marriage) I really did not know what she was talking about.
She continued, “we take a picture of St. George killing the dragon and place it near the snake pit and in the house and the snake goes away.”
“Where does it go?”
“It just leaves, but you have to believe”.
I bumped into a friend of mine in the canteen and told her the story. She is a rationalist, so she said , “perhaps the smell of humans drives them away? Anyway try it. What do you have to lose?”
I downloaded a picture, printed it out and stuck it on the pit (from a distance with a stick.)
A few days later coming down the stairs, I noticed a snake slithering on the floor. As I stood there paralysed, it disappeared into the back of the. I woke up my father.
“There is a snake behind the fridge. Be careful.”
“Where are you going ?”
“To look for the watchman. I think he may kill it.”
My father sat down on a chair facing the refrigerator. My husband came down the stairs.
“What’s going on?”
“I saw a snake. It is behind the fridge.”
“Oh “ he said nonchalantly “I have been seeing it for a couple of days now. It lives behind the fridge.”
“Do something” I said.
“I have to run, otherwise it will be too hot. Besides it is never there when I return.” He disappeared for his jog.
I left too, and returned with the watchman a half hour later.
“Where is the snake?”
My 86 year old father replied,” I killed it. It came out again. I speared it with your javelin and then dropped your hammer on its head.”
Dr. Gita Mathai
The writer is a paediatrician with a family practice at Vellore.
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