Yesterday was a painful day for me. I had come out in the open for an evening crawl. The hot day of the rainy season had been followed by a light breeze in the evening. I wanted to breathe the fresh air. I had lived in the dark fissures of my underground home for long. I wanted to enjoy every moment of my crawl.
Suddenly I saw a giant looking creature staring at me from a distance. He looked very similar to the kind of species named human beings about whom my parents had warned me in my childhood. He had covered his body with strange looking materials from neck to the bottom. He could stand like a tree, but unlike us he moved vertically. My parents had conveyed that these humans consider us as their sworn enemies. Whenever or wherever they catch sight of us, they attack and kill us.
I immediately crawled for safety and hid myself under a big iron box kept nearby. From there I could see that the human was still standing. It seemed it was speaking to someone with the help of a device in his one hand. Just then I saw that two other humans arrived on a fast moving machine. They were armed will long sticks, the sight of which sent a chill down my whole body.
My grandfather had once told me that though the human beings consider themselves the most powerful creatures on the earth, most of them worship a superpower named God in various forms. They always pray to God whenever in danger. I wished we also had had such a God to whom I could send my prayers.
Anyway these two well built fellows started searching every nook and corner around. Soon they discovered my hiding place. They overturned the box and surrounded me from two sides. I crouched and left myself to the fate. By that time a few more humans had assembled to watch this whole spectacle. They started talking to one another. Probably they were discussing my fate: whether to kill me or to drive me away. I used this as an opportunity to escape from there and run towards the road.
Thus started the game of hide and seek between me and those lathi clad guys. They were trying to lift me on the stick but I would always escape either to the roads or the bushes. I saw that one of the onlookers was using the same small device that I had seen with the first human, to take an aim at me. Probably they were taking my images which they would show and circulate later as a sign of their victory.
I could not continue dribbling and dodging in this life threatening game for long. I was tired and injured. So I gave up. They held me on a stick and threw me away from ‘their territory’ in the wild of the rice fields across the boundary wall. I fell on an unknown and unfamiliar hard surface with a thud, hurt and humiliated.
I was unable to understand why I had been thrown away from the place where I had lived since my birth. Why do the human beings consider us as their enemies? Why should they kill us or even evict us from the territories which are equally ours? We never offend them or any other species unless provoked. Is it not possible for all the creatures including us and humans to live together in peace and harmony on this Earth?
©arunjee
This was first published on blogger: https://arunbandana.blogspot.com/2017/07/from-diary-of-snake.html
Photo credit: arun jee, 15 July 2017
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