Unwelcome Visitor

UNWELCOME VISITOR

I remember it was on a Friday morning, a week before Deepavali a few years ago, that we had this unexpected visitor at home. I was in the office, getting into the thick of things, when my better three-fourths called me up and told me to hurry home. The visitor had turned up most unexpectedly and my wife wanted me to turn him away.

I left the office in a rush, thinking dark thoughts about the unwelcome visitor. He had come home on a working day without prior intimation and it was quite annoying. My work was totally disrupted and I would have to forego my weekend R & R to make up for the lost time.

He probably wanted to surprise my wife and so did not announce himself at the main door but chose to drop in through the dining room window which was left open. My wife told me that he promptly hid behind the fridge. She had spotted him, though.

I called up Anees, who knew him and several members of his extended family quite well. Anees told me he would be at my house within half-an-hour and would be happy to take care of our “friend”. Meanwhile, having reached home, I decided to keep a discreet watch.

Anees was as good as his word and reached within the promised time. His first question was whether the intruder had showed himself. I replied that all this while he had stayed put behind the fridge, maybe waiting for an opportune moment to spring out.

Rather than wait for our guest to show himself, Anees went straight to his hiding place and without much ado pulled him out. Our friend was annoyed and tried to wriggle out. But Anees held him firmly by the scruff of his neck and put him into a cloth bag which he had brought with him!

He was quite, er, tall, at least a seven-footer, well built and dark complexioned. And, well, some would go so far as to call him handsome too!

“Wow, a big one, Sir, at least seven feet! A fully grown rat snake. Not poisonous, but he has a nasty bite, quite painful. He can climb 3-4 feet walls easily. You must be careful, there are many snakes in this area. I will release him in the Bannerghatta forest. And now I must be leaving because I have two more calls to attend to.” So saying, Anees put the cloth bag with its wriggling contents into his van and drove off.

And that ended our tryst with our reptilian visitor!

© Shiva Kumar