Understand the misunderstood

When I first met him, I had no idea that he was going to be a turning point in my life. I had just turned 24, the age, when most of us begin exploring what to do with our lives (or in my case do some really silly things!). My family wasn’t particularly happy with this so called “meeting”. I had never done anything like this before, and so had no clue what to expect, but I wanted to keep an open mind and see how it goes. If you never explore, you never know right? I was nervous as hell going in, my hands were trembling and when I laid eyes on him, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight. In fact, I was so scared that I contemplated running away, while I still had the chance. But somehow in a moment of youthful indiscretion (impulsiveness), my heart took over my head and I decided to stay and see it through! It took me a while to get used to being around him but I kind of liked the feeling. It felt quite different from what I had initially thought; it was magical to say the least. I had fallen in “love”, and that’s him right there, in my arms — “Quba!”, the ball python who stole my heart and changed my perception about snakes forever.

Why do we have this inherent bias towards snakes? What have they done to deserve such a bad reputation? There are many interesting studies done where subjects were asked to study fear relevant images (like snakes and spiders) amongst fear irrelevant images (like flowers and mushrooms). A large number of people found the snakes more quickly than the other harmless objects no matter how the order was changed. In ancient times, venomous snakes could have well been a reason for people to die, and hence evolutionarily we have been conditioned to be afraid of snakes.


Mainstream media hasn't helped either. Animals are always stereotyped in fiction, cats are mean, birds are sweet, but I think no one got it worse than these poor snakes. They have always been represented as evil, mean and vengeful; like Nagini in Harry Potter, Kaa in The Jungle Book, the evil snake in Aladdin or the Slytherin house sigil! With their massive fangs, flaming red eyes, awfully dramatized tongue flicks, snakes are over and over again typecast in mainstream media. Let’s not even talk about the Anaconda kind of movies. Don’t think there was anything other than JLo to keep those coming. When you can’t understand something, what’s the easiest thing to do? Demonize it!

Reptiles are at the bottom of the popularity ladder everywhere, but especially so in the region where I currently work (which is India) because there are many myths and superstitions about snakes- and indeed all reptiles- leading to them being killed on sight. Doesn’t help that 50,000 people die every year in India due to snakebites, this is mostly due to human folly and not the snakes themselves, snakes are just abundant in agricultural areas and when people walk around without torches, they step on these snakes which bite them in self defense. Sleeping outside on the floor also causes nocturnal snakes who are wandering around to accidentally come into contact with humans. Keeping houses unclean causes rats to come in and that attracts more snakes into the house, who are only searching for some food. If we want to coexist we need to learn how to avoid snakes. My boss, Rom Whitaker who has worked with venomous snakes for decades now always says — “You have to do silly things to get bitten by a snake!”. A lot of these deaths are also due to poor infrastructure. Roads to the nearest hospital may be bad or non-existent, so ambulances may struggle to get victims to health centers. In remote hospitals, stocks of anti-venom can run low. Rural people think they can cure snakebite by traditional medicine and resort to not going to a hospital to get anti-venom. All of this is just not helping the cause.

A beautiful Spectacled Cobra
Picture courtesy: Arul/MCBT

As we all know, truth is much stranger than fiction and there is no need to build myths about snakes, because snakes are pretty awesome animals and so important to our ecosystem. Without snakes we would have millions of rats roaming around which would be an unimaginable travesty. Snakes are actually also such amazing animals. I am very fascinated with the King Cobra, it is not only beautiful and majestic, but is also the only snake in the world which can build its own nest, now imagine a limbless animal actually doing that! Their nests are so well made that they withstand thunderstorms and keep the eggs in them totally dry! Now how awesome is that! Check out the video from one of our field stations, the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station.

King Cobra males compete with each other for a female during the breeding season, but their fight is restricted strictly to pinning the other down and not once do they bite or hurt each other in this process, and we’d think they are primitive. A drop of a Common Cobra’s venom can kill 50 humans, yet their usual response to a human threat? Hiss, hood up to make itself look bigger and more intimidating, as a last resort it strikes but with its mouth closed, this is wonderfully captured in this slow-mo video made by Icon Films for one of their documentaries in collaboration with MCBT.

The message is clear “just leave me alone, I mean no harm, let me go.” This has been emphasised by many of the world’s leading herpetologists, snakes are more afraid of us than we are of them. All they are trying to do is defend themselves. In most occasions a snake will just try it’s best to slither away from you as soon as possible. They are not vengeful creatures as they are made to be in common mythology, where one of many universal myths is that a snake will bite someone and then climb the tallest tree to wait eagerly for the victim’s funeral pyre.

Growing up as an Indian, you have two options for a career choice; Engineering or Medicine, if you get lucky, we can squeeze in law sometimes. So I did engineering first & then thought about what I wanted to do. I have always been an explorer. I like exploring new avenues, I have tried everything from modelling to being a Neuroscientist to an Operations Manager and also a Zookeeper. Anyways I still ended up doing a Masters in Engineering from NTU (so much for being an explorer :P). It was also during this time that I started working part time at the Singapore Zoo as a Show Presenter. It was the most exciting job I have ever had. I was all enthusiastic for my first day at work and I was handed a broom and a dustpan and sent to clean an otter’s cage. Now I have loved otters since forever, so you can imagine how excited I was. So I walk in there and for a second I thought I was going to faint and die on my first day at work. It was the worst smell I had ever dealt with in my entire life. If you thought fish as food smelt bad enough, then fish as faeces, let’s just leave it at that. It really was a true test to see who has what it takes to stay on in this job and stay I did for 6 years. It moulded me as a more confident individual, and i loved interacting with visitors from around the world and learning about their views on animals, snakes in particular. We always hear questions like "Do they have diamonds on their heads?" "Will they poke your eyes out?" "Is their skin slimy to touch?"

Material courtesy: Living with Snakes - A project of MCBT

Today, as Assistant Director of one of the world’s largest reptile zoos, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, breaking stereotypes about reptiles is a huge part of my job. During show and tells with live snakes, I do put these points across, no snakes do not poke your eyes out, no they are not wet and slimy to touch, in fact their skin is made up of keratin, the same substance as our nails and hair, if you feel your nails, that’s how a snake will feel, no they do not drink milk, no they do not come back and haunt you in the afterlife, no unfortunately they do not have precious gems in their heads. Just how astonished people are at some of these facts and the dawn of realization in their eyes that snakes may not be so bad after all really makes my day. We are currently working on a snakebite mitigation program to address the 50,000 deaths in India every year and education is our biggest hope. 


As I said before, the solution is as simple as using a torch at night, keeping your house rat-free and having clear pathways without leaf litter to walk on. It is actually that simple. We must understand that for someone like us, snakes are not a problem, we mostly live in urban environments where they are not a direct threat to our lives. Snakebite is a poor man’s problem and in many developing countries like India, it is a big problem. In fact, the WHO has recognized snakebite in India to be a neglected tropical disease. The implication of this problem in a country as big and diverse as India is massive, not only are people dying, but snakes are too, it is important to get people to understand and provide solutions which are practically and economically feasible. All the snake wants to do is get away, but if we step on them in the dark by mistake, they will bite in defense. If we have rats in the house, they will come looking for food, it’s as logical as that. India has a lot of agricultural lands, this attracts rats, they attract snakes, there is no two ways about this, the only only thing we can learn to do is to live together and to do that we must understand each other. The thing about stereotypes is that they are as easy to break as they are formed. It just needs some education and awareness. That all snakes are dangerous and only killing them will save our lives is a horrible way to approach this subject. Understanding comes from education, learning about them, seeing them for who they are and not for who we think they are. The best thing to do when someone sees a snake is to walk away from it quietly and not provoke it. The only way to survive a snakebite is to get anti-venom. These facts are being put together in a travelling education model and we are working on getting that to the Indian States most affected by snakebite.

Print material courtesy : Living with snakes - A project of MCBT.

Snakes have had it tough, society on a whole has typecast them and victimized them in their own ways. To end my story, I have a question for you guys, how many of you have watched “How to train a dragon?” it is a wonderful movie which you must watch! The protagonist grows up in an archaic system where all he sees are people killing dragons because they are seen as a threat, he however decides to break that trend, and understands that those dragons are being vile because they are defending themselves from the humans who are hurting them, he changes the whole concept and breaks so many barriers for his community. Now let’s put snakes in that category and maybe it will be easier to see why they do what they do. So before stereotyping or forming strong opinions, let’s take a moment to educate ourselves. They deserve that respect.

For more on the amazing work the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust does, check out their website: www.madrascrocodilebanktrust.org