Encounter with a cool cobra...

A very odd thing happened today... I dont want to believe it... but it seems to work that way...

I work at a very beautiful place, a factory which is surrounded by farms for more than one km in every direction... it is a place we try to live and work in harmony with its other non-human habitants. Yes, as we have opted to work between farms, some of there's natural natives have come to live between us... that includes many insects, reptiles, birds, and animals...

Right now one of my half built shed has more than 12 honey combs all around its roof structure... other shed has another 3-4... and honey bees of those combs feel free to fill the space of my sheds... it is a nice experience moving around the black and yellow flies... they keep on dropping some yellow thing all around but they sting only occasionally.

There are butterflies and a lot other varieties of flying objects... at times they make it difficult to even work in the evenings when it is dark outside and you want to work in light... they keep on jumping and flying around you to distract you like a bunch of 'Apsaras' (celestial damsel from the heaven')...

And then there are cows and buffalo, sheep and goats who are daily visitors... they work as our grass cutters... The ground overflows with frogs every monsoon.. to feel the air with soothing draun draun... Snakes are found in some scrap or some unused corners often... but they dont harm anyone... pigeons have their permanent home on our trusses and purlins... and they do a very nice job in keeping our metal sections white... and yellow sometimes and they make spots!

But this has become a routine I guess... we dont notice many of the things now! but a very strange thing happen today and actually that is what I wanted to talk about...

We have just started to build some quarters in the back corner for the workers. The contractor's workers started digging the place for the foundation from yesterday. And today morning while they were working, they found a black cobra in their working space... they stopped the work for some time and the snake went to a nearby bushes... they started working again and soon after the cobra came back near them... it came and sit where they had to dig. Again they took a halt.

They started the work again after the lunch and again the same thing happened. It came from a different direction and sit just where they were working... it was not in mood to harm anyone but probably wanted to keep its territory I guess. One of our workers clapped after it and forced it to go away... and the work started again for sometime till it was interrupted by the same cause in the same fashion. Forth time in the day.

Generally, snakes are afraid of humans as humans are of them. And so, snakes generally try to run away from the humans... but this one had some different thoughts. We heard about it and went there to find the exact story. And then the story started becoming more interesting... more human than snake... one of the workers said that the snake is actually guarding the area as a security guard. It may be either coz of the ancestors of the farmers who farmed this land for years. Some other said that it might be guarding some buried treasure...

While we were busy running our thoughts all around in the snake holes... the snake came out to say "tum log mujhe bahar dhundh rahe ho aur main tumhara yahan intezar kar raha hoon..."! It had only its head out of the bushes and it was doing its usual tongue out and in thing... I went closer and it stopped doing it... it stayed there... fearless but anxious... and it kept on staring... it was an odd feeling... facing a cobra merely 5 feet away... both looking at each other... aware of each other's existence... waiting for the other to take the first step... forward or backward... it beat me in the movement... it went back to the bushes... this sounds more like a heroic story in some comic book but then that is the reason I am writing about it...

Most of the people agreed with the opinion of the first worker and many said they have seen such things... snakes guarding land... and subsequently it was decided that we get some dry coconut, fire a lamp and do some small worship near that area and then start working. And we did that!

The snake did not show up after that...! may be cause of the dark... it wasnt much dark for a couple of hours though... but I dont want to be convince that easily that it did not come back coz of that lamp and coconut... I am not much convince that it was actually guarding the land due to xyz reason... snakes are not that intelligent I believe... but they also would have Einstein and Newton... I am anxious to see what happens tomorrow... will write if something notable would happen...

Later, I had a talk with the farmer next plot... who has that border common with us... and who spends most of his time in that corner to watch for his farm. According to him the snake lives there for many years now... it has come across the farmer's family many times but havent harmed anyone till date... and it has prevented falling a tree in the past... like it came and sit at the base of the trunk of the tree every time people came to cut it... they cut the tree eventually though...

I am excited to find the cobra do some wonders tomorrow... I'm keeping my fingers cross to find either a genius cobra or a cool cobra...