Is That a Snake in Your Closet?

The monsoon rain in Goa thunders down for weeks on end. Lying in your bed at night there is only the tiled roof between you and the roar of the ocean. Books lie limp and soggy in your hands. Platoons of small frogs hop across the floor and delighted cats play “pat the frog”. (How do you rescue a frog? Very very carefully. They spend all their time in water just so that they can pee on whoever tries to pick them up.) Fungus grows plentiful on your shoes,your walls,your paintings,everywhere that the sun don’t shine. And the sun don’t shine for weeks. As the fields fill up with rain,you have unexpected visitors seeking sanctuary.

A couple of monsoons ago,I spent a night with friends,drinking away my monsoon blues. I staggered home in the early hours only to be greeted by four hysterically barking dogs. I clutched my aching head,shoved them out of the bedroom and shut the door. I woke up in the morning and tumbled out of bed to discover that the contents of an entire shelf of the cupboard were on the floor. I picked them up and flung them back in. I was turning away when I did the classic cartoon double take and looked at it again. It looked back at me. An ominous coil bulged over the edge.

A large coil with a gold-and-black pattern. The next moment I shot out of the room and slammed the door. A row of dogs regarded me with “we-told-you-so” expressions. “Python!” I yelled.

I soon got help from Green Rescue,an organisation that sends trained catchers when they get hysterical calls. They arrived jammed on a scooter in such pouring rain that they had to use the headlights to see where they were going. One was a little boy with pimples who looked about 12. Another had dreadlocks and a Bob Marley T-shirt. The third was their pal who’d come along for the ride. The first thing they did was prod the snake. All it did was get him mad. Here he was having a nice nap,out of the rain at last,and he had been barked at,shrieked at and prodded. A python’s angry hiss is loud! Something like a pressure cooker with hiccups. The onlooker friend shot out of the door,the lights went off and we were left in the gloom with a very angry and very noisy snake. I climbed on to the bed with a torch,so it was by the fitful light of dying batteries that I saw the furious python as he uncoiled and slithered on to the floor. There was a moment of awed silence as we gaped at him. The dogs then yelped with terror,put their tails between their legs and ran for it.

It was 20 feet from end to angry end. The dread-locked boy swung into action and got a grip on the head. The other end thrashed all over the place. A python is basically one huge muscle. And if you want it to go where it doesn’t,then you have to wrestle it. My aunt stood at the door,mesmerised,saying repeatedly,“He’s big! He’s big… oh he’s big… he’s very big…Oooh BIG!” I’ve been known to use the same expression on occasions far less worthy.

Finally the boys stood heaving and panting,triumphantly holding aloft the python. I ran to get a bag. You’ll be surprised at how small a bag you can squeeze such a big snake into. Dreadlocks and Pimples shoved the sack on their bike and went off to release the snake in the forest,leaving us to recover. I soon discovered it’s impossible to impress anyone in Goa with a snake story. They all have their own. “Oh that’s nothing,I had a cobra on my pillow….” “I put my foot in my shoe and there was a snake curled in there….” “Do you know in Mexico they get bitten by a snake to get high? I’m trying to find out what kind of snake….” Until the rain ends,I open my closets very very carefully.

beachside@expressindia.com