Charming

My limited Western mind sometimes gets in the way of experiencing the real world, Eastern style. Though I have seen some really amazing things in this part of the world, leave it to my friend Manvita in India to share a true story that could only come from Asia.

It is monsoon season in Ahmedabad (a small town of 4 million Indian residents that most people have never heard of, except it is where Gandhi had his Ashram. You may also know it because it is in the state of Gujarat, which is proud of its heritage as a home of merchants, and who have immigrated to the US. If you go to Red Roof/Quality Inn or other such hotels, it’s even money that the guy running the hotel is Gujarati. I think Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is also a Gujarati--Gandhi and Abu--it doesn't get much broader than that). But I digress.

So the monsoons mean floods, and Ahmedabad can get hit pretty hard. And as waters rise, the things in the water come along for the ride. Thus it was that Manvita found a 6 foot black hooded Cobra yesterday in her father’s theater next to her home.

Now, I suppose that finding a snake, even a potentially deadly snake, is not that far out of the ordinary, even in the West. So the fact that Manvita found one is probably no big deal. She screamed, ran in the house, got on the table, and called the exterminator/police/the next door neighbor.

Not so fast my friend, for this is the East, not the West. So what Manvita really did was the common sense thing to do when you have a displaced Cobra on your hands—she called the snake charmer!!

Now, I don’t know many of the details, as this was all covered during an IM chat this morning (JB: How you doing? MB: I came across a Cobra yesterday (yawn)). Did she go to the Yellow Pages? Is the number for the snake charmer on the bulletin board next to the phone? Does she have a key ring with ‘Snakes r Us?’ Who knows? It’s India. Somehow she got the number for the snake charmer, and rang him up.

So a while later, here comes the white bearded, saffron-robed snake charmer (the guy in the picture is his younger brother), putty-putting on his scooter down the street to Manvita’s house, where he pulls out his little flute thingee and proceeds to charm the snake into the box he has brought. The last time Manvita saw him, he was putty-putting back up the street, with the Cobra in the box strapped on the back of his scooter, saffron robe fluttering in the wind.

As previously noted this is Asia, which means that there is a lot more to absorb than my finite mind can handle. So, I failed to ask what do you do with a Cobra (which I think is endangered and protected?) How much does a snake charmer cost? How do you pay—by the hour, by the job, by the foot? Who knows?

In India, finding a Cobra in your path can lead to a truly charming story.