Wildbuzz | Phantom in the headlights

Fact may not always be stranger than fiction but it can, at the very least, be equally shocking. Ruchi Bajaj, a resident of Sector 18, Chandigarh, and wife of Sindhi Sweets’ director, Abhishek Bajaj, went out for a night drive recently with her friends after dinner. The three ladies were in for a surprise of their lifetime.
The well-maintained VIP road flanked by scrub jungle, as one heads towards the main Civil Secretariat to the left and the high court to the right and below, was also being eyed by a serpent for passage. The road was quiet, a far cry from the day’s hustle and bustle.
At 10.15 pm, as their vehicle neared the roundabout that leads to the secretariat main gates on the left, the friends were left gaping. Normally, at night, it is dogs or deer or a rare porcupine/ jackal that vehicles swerve or brake to avoid in these haloed precincts of Chandigarh.
But for the chic trio, it was virtually an alien sighting. There were no shrieks that followed; it was awe, it was chilling, and it was overpowering.
“A massive snake was slithering across, slowly. I braked to avoid killing it. After it passed, I took the roundabout and a U-turn and we again saw the snake climbing onto the pavement, watched by a bird (red-wattled lapwing). We had never expected such a sight, it is something one sees only in the movies. We were terrified,” Bajaj told this writer.
Though the python could not have harmed the trio, even if it wished to, such is the inordinate influence that serpents exert on the imagination that they leave protagonists shuddering at “what could have (impossibly) happened”!
Upon seeing the photos, Aditi Mukherjee, one of India’s leading experts on pythons, told this writer: “Most likely the python had fed on something. This is the time of the year when they forage (eat to stock body fats) before the winters set in and they get less active. I estimate the python at 10ft, by looking at the surroundings in comparison.”
Yellowish blur in Sukhna night
Walkers at night have on occasion spotted a yellowish, slithering blur at the outer edges of the pools of light cast by the Sukhna lake lamps. They have wondered over the snake’s identity. In most cases, the yellowish reptile is the highly-venomous Russell’s viper, which is not uncommon in the shrub jungle covering the embankment running down to the road along the golf course.
The viper is a pugnacious creature, sometimes as stubborn as a mule in giving way. It can hiss memorably after coiling into a ‘jalebi’ and sounding almost like an annoyed pressure cooker left unattended on the stove. It prefers to keep to its own ways and life but can bite viciously with two long fangs when trodden upon or mishandled. Vipers account for the highest number of human fatalities inflicted by Indian venomous species.
Gagan Jaswal got us a vivid photo of an adult viper at the Sukhna walkway having stumbled upon it at 9.13 pm just ahead of the Tower (infamously known as the ‘suicide point’). The viper could either have been hunting for rodents, going down to the water or seeking in autumn the warmth of the walkway tarmac which takes time to cool down at night.
“I was not afraid as I was seeing it for the second time! It was kind of adventurous for me! The wildlife department was quick to respond to my call. Their rescue team came in a very short time and took away the snake. People faced with similar situations normally call up the police 80% of the time; they should know the emergency helpline of the department and seek its assistance,” Jaswal told this writer.
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