A Real Live Snake Charmer

A few days before Thanksgiving, a traveling snake charmer was passing through our neighborhood in Baridhara, calling out to the apartment buildings as he went along. Lucky me, I just happened to be making my way home from a day in the markets as he was walking past. I didn't know what he was selling at first - he carried a bamboo pole across his shoulders with a cloth bundle tied to each end. But as he walked and called, he stopped and played a few notes on a strange-sounding bulbous flute. It reminded me of a clarinet with a head cold. One of the security guards on duty told me he was a "Shapkhela" - which literally means "snake player." And so I decided that this was something Ben and I had to see. After the usual price negotiations, we invited him into the cool shade of the garage, where he unpacked his bundles: three lidded baskets. In one were two cobras, in another some kind of viper, and in the third a skinny green milk snake. Of course the batteries in our video camera hadn't been charged, but Ben managed to get a few minutes of video using our little Sony camera. See for yourselves! (But folks living in godforsaken parts of the country where high speed internet is still unavailable might want to try their local libraries or educational institutions - the video might not play well on a dial-up connection...)