Posts made by Dr S Bhatia

Hi Art
1. the picture is freely visible, no need to login.
2. it took me a wgile to realise what they are holding. Initially it seemed like two women sharing something eatable.

I'd like to share this incident with you, pertaining to snakes.
In 2001-02, when we were having a military stand-off with Pakistan, I was at a post in the desert and had set camp of my unit in the middle of a quasi-desert field. Another unit of infantry was sharing some area with us. They belonged to Eastern parts of India.

One night, while I was dining with my officers, my cook came running into the dining hall(VERY unusual) shouting snake, snake! We all ran and discovered a King cobra, thick as my arm and about 5-6 feet in length. Since it had managed to cross our snakepits, he was obviously a threat to troops and we immediately killed it with sticks. By then few sepoys from neighbouring unit came running asking us not to kill it. I tried to explain to them that normally even I normally don't kill any snake but if my troops are in danger, I'll kill it.

Their sergeant looked crestfallen. "That's not what I am saying ,Sir" he said. "What I meant was, had you waited a bit, we would have killed it with precision so that we could eat it then. You don't know how to kill properly and you have spoilt a perfectly good meal".

Life's like that.smile