Tuesday, May 12, 2009

And that's where I come from...


Under the car was a baby cobra
Coiled with a hood of beauty and shine...
Alarming woofs of my playful, silly dogs
Made him rush to that garden of mine...

Leave him in peace and away you go
My little naughty ones,
You need not be with creatures divine, not just yet.
And away you go dear baby with no fear
Waiting is your mother with siblings nine..

He then slithered somewhere far away...
With my gentle push and a touch.
Happy were silly dogs, so was the baby cobra
These are the real pleasures of mine...

-Baba-12-05-2009

Dear Gauri,

Last night, a baby cobra of about 20 inches length came and
thrilled all of us. His hood was very cute, hardly measuring about
1.5" in width....

Some six months back, Lali* had cornered a six-inch baby cobra. I had pushed it away with a mug full of water to let him to go, as a
stick would have injured him....

Of late, i have realized one thing...all babies, living beings should be
nurtured equally, loved and protected with care.

Baba


*Lali is one of our four pet stray dogs

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

We should... unfortunately we dont... !

coffeeismypoison said...

gauri this is exquisite. filled with love and kindness and compassion...we should...love all babies...not just babies :)
is this a true incident?

Unknown said...

Thats a very noble thought, but frankly, I would be scared looking at the snake and not think whether its a baby...

Shail said...

Aww so cute thinking of a baby cobra... This is written with so much love.

firaq darvesh said...

Dear Gauri....
Thank you very much for puting this noble thought on your blog...and my complements to you for drawing the beautiful innocent baby cobra...
May God bless you.
Baba/13-05-2009.

Solilo said...

That is so sweet, Gauri.

Malsawmi Jacob said...

Cobras, pythons, tigers, leopards...they're such beautiful creatures. But their beauty doesn't make them any less fearsome.

From the poem, i can picture your dogs woof woofing at the strange creature that's come to visit their territory.

Gauri Gharpure said...

Dhiren-- Yes.. :)

Shweta-- Thanks. This is 100% true, my father sent me an email and I loved it so much, i posted it up.

Sara--yes, most would be scared.. but we grew up where snakes were way too common. and with my father around, we grew up respecting everything that came to our garden

Cool Cancerian-- written with love. dot on! And I request to be able to read your blog.. it's restricted..

Baba-- thanks:) i am picking up Corel now with the help of my collegue

Solilo-- thanks :)

Mesjay-- the dogs are now quite old now, you know, about eight or so, but for us, still babies... and abt the fear factor, the place i grew up and my father ensured we grew up without inhibitions..

Nino's Mum said...

:) a hug for your dad from me.

Anonymous said...

yay, I saved a little bird once..:) I am so proud of your baba..:)

Anonymous said...

this is so touching and beautiful Gauri :)
(((hugs))for your dad:)
we need more such people like him and more families like yours:))
I know I would be scared looking at a snake but I also know that I wouldn't be able to left a hand to hurt it...

(which means I will end up dead if its a poisonous snake) :P

but seriously this was sweet:)
we need more such compassion in today's world:))

unfuel the planet said...

i am glad that both the cobra and ur pet are safe.

Anonymous said...

When we lived in Port Blair and in Kerala I saw some people people kill snakes at sight, others never did, they just ignored them.

We never killed any snakes - and I learnt to not be afraid. The saddest part was most of the snakes were killed in ignorance, they were not even poisonous.

This beautiful, touching post brought back so many lovely stories!!

firaq darvesh said...

Dear Indianhomemaker,
In Port Blair, you would have been the lucky one to see many snakes,lizards and the KING COBRAS also.I admire your kindness not to kill them and your self gained fearlessness, knowledge, which created compassion for other living beings...
Most of the times, it is our ignorance,that makes us behave wrongly.
Almost 55 years back,in PANCH MAHALS, when i was a child, my father, being the head of an educational institute,had to kill a huge snake in his workshop after keeping the institute closed for more than a half day. it was measuring about 10 feet or even more. He kept on saying that it was a king cobra, but because of our ignorance and lack of knowledge,we never believed him.
Many more years later, may be after 40 years or more,I came accross of a document, which said, that KING COBRAS were distributed in the western ghats,in the forests of PANCH MAHALS and SABARKANTHA in Gujarat,their present visinities in south india,Sunderbans in bengal,Burma,Andaman and nikobar islands,Thiland,Malaysia and so on.
* The first thing i did that i beged for apologies from my old father....
* I remember a story my mother used to tell.The story was of some village people, who used to say that they spoted a tiger somewhere near river ...some would say, he had the smell of him near his farm....some would say,call of cubs were heard and so on....slowly, the hunters,nobles, and people started killing them for their hobbies and reasons....the villager, mainly, though at losses of their livestock many a times,were unhappy.... years passed by....reports came that they are extinct now....many years later...a shepherd came running with joys saying, he had smelled that picular smell of him and seen small pugmarks following the big ones.....!
* July 12,13,14th 2000 was the heighest rain fall the whole Gujarat experienced in past 100 years.After the rains slowed down, may be two days later, reports of damages started coming in news papers.
A small brief : " North Gujarat/Sabarkantha/a 4/5 month tiger cub was found dead drowned near a river bank "
Though it was painful for me,my face glittered like that shepherd, who gospeled about the evidence of the tiger!
baba.28-05-2009.
* kindly pardon me for my poor English.

Fictitioustruth said...

really very nice.

Sujoy Bhattacharjee said...

This was so refreshing. Hardly see people (other than activists) caring for animals.....the heck! We hardly have time for them.
The poem too was good...a bit reminiscent of Ezekiel's 'Night of the Scorpion'.