A Scary Encounter

I remember my mother’s encounter with a snake Small I was, yet grown enough to know That a cobra was more venomous than most other snakes My mother was brave…. brave to the hilt If ever she sighted a snake by chance She would at once chase it with a stick And kill it if it couldn’t escape her notice A strange trait not in any way keeping with the one Who by nature was so compassionate to man and beast I used to wonder why she was so spiteful to snakes She had had it ever since I could remember Later I learned, one of her uncles, in his prime Had been bitten by a snake and had died a tragic death! She once chanced to see a snake in our compound This time her enemy was a formidable one It was trying to escape to the cluster of bushes But through the furrowed land, its movement wasn’t easy My mother not armed with a sturdy cane Beat it with a flimsy stick… of course a risky act! It was hit somewhere around its tail With the fire of fury burning in its eyes It stood erect with its forked tongue flicking out And its six inch hood spread out like a fan It was a cobra of the deadliest kind! To make matters worse, our dog Came running from far, ready to pounce on it My mother was between the devil and the deep sea Yet she didn’t lose her composure Without taking her eyes off the snake She called out to her children to watch the drama Which she said could never be seen so close And could be watched, perhaps only in a zoo We were so scared of the whole scene And pleaded her to come away instantly But she said- ‘a wounded snake was a dangerous thing If let go, it would at any time come back to bite’ Might be a superstition she had imbibed as a child Fortunately just above that fateful venue Was our compound wall behind which All of us had stationed, so panic stricken My brother, from somewhere lifted up a huge stone And dropped it over the snake from behind the wall Something the cobra had never anticipated Its head was hit hard and was under the rock As it wriggled and coiled desperately trying to free itself My mother using the chance, beat it black and blue And finally it was dead…. A memory That still sends shivers down my spine And fills my mind with a rare awe for my mom!