A Python's Plight

 

A Python's Plight

November 28, 2015. A bit chilly in the evening at Bhopal, but not yet very cold. About 8.00 PM, I was walking my dog when a car coming from the opposite direction suddenly screeched to a halt a few metres away. When the driver stepped out, I noted that he was Mr. Pateriya, a senior Forest officer, and a neighbour.

Any issue with the car, I asked?

‘No, a python crossing the road. I was about to run over it. Thank God, I was not speeding, and applied the brake in time,’ he said.

The python was stunned for a minute by the car’s headlight, and the screeching noise, but hastened for cover. In its confusion, it missed the path leading to its home somewhere on the rocky banks of Laharpur Dam – an incomplete and abandoned irrigation project, and climbed up the iron railing separating the river bank from the road. Perched on top of the railing, it tried to reach a branch of the nearby neem tree, but in vain.

A flash mob assembled soon enough, and began clicking photos on their mobile phones using the flash. I must confess that I, too, had clicked a few photos, though without the flash. Several young boys and girls clicked selfies. To click a photo of the open jaws of the hissing python, some even poked it with stick, and threw pebbles at it.

The python was hungry, possibly having missed the rat or mongoose it was trying to capture in the bushes on the road-side. It was away from home, and the cold iron railing felt very different from the branch of a tree, or the swamp from which it caught fish. Pythons are excellent swimmers, and can stay under water for up to 30 minutes at a time.

The shouting and screaming by the excited mob of mostly teens with flash cameras in hand was a scary experience for the reptile since it had not seen these two-legged creatures at close quarters. It became terribly upset, and began hissing. All it wanted to do was to find its way back home.

Mr. Pateriya and I shouted at the young revellers to have mercy on the harassed creature, and stop bothering it. We also alerted the Forest department.

The rescue team arrived after about two hours.  ‘What took so long?’ Mr. Pateriya asked the Range Officer, who had arrived on a large truck, and with a team of eight or more workers carrying sturdy lathis and thick ropes.

Where is the bison, asked the Range Officer? I had to mobilise a proper team to capture it.

Our alert message should have been in Hindi, we realised. Ajgar could not have been mis-heard as van bhainsa or bison!

Soon, the team rescued the python, put it in a jute bag, and took it for rehabilitation to Van Vihar National Park, Bhopal.

A few days later, on Dec 2, I visited Van Vihar to check how the rescued reptile was doing. It had been fed well, and was sleeping cosily.

The vet had examined it. The rescued python was a young male about 3 years old, 6 ft long, and weighed 12 kilos. He was in good health.

I asked, ‘Would you keep him in that cage for ever?’

‘No, after a week or so, we’d release him in Ratapani sanctuary, adjacent to Bhopal. Every year, we rescue several pythons from Bhopal, including a few from the CM’s residence. Bhopal, with its hillocks and lakes, is a natural habitat of the Indian rock python, a very shy, nocturnal, and non-poisonous snake.’

(The rescued python at Van Vihar National Park, Bhopal on Dec 2, 2015.)

LP (Laharpur Python, as I fondly named him), translocated to Ratapani, would now be a robust male, about 17 ft long, and weighing 70 kilos or more. I hope he found a mate, and is the proud father of several children, and a grandfather, too.

(The distressed python near Laharpur Dam, Baghmugaliya Extension, Nov 28, 2015)

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Note: 

• Author's profile may be seen at http://amazon.com/author/pkdash
• Books by this author are available on Amazon.in, Kindle eBook, Flipkart, and Notion Press, Chennai.

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