I could hear my heart thudding. The snake must have heard it, too. Suddenly, it reared its head a foot in the air, and remained poised there, its cruel black eyes glistening in the moonlight. The slightest movement of hand or head, and those deadly fangs would be buried in my quivering flesh! ‘I shut my eyes and waited in fear for the great snake to strike. But now it seemed to lose interest in my face, and once again it slithered down between my legs. A horrible sensation, baba! I was shivering all over. But then slowly I began to realize that the snake was not interested in me; it was interested only in getting out of my bed and out of the tent. I wanted to help it on its way. But if I made a sudden move, or leapt out of my bed, it would sink its fangs
into me, of that I was certain.
‘I remained still, trying to control my shivering. The snake was trying every corner of the bed, looking for an outlet. I felt its head against the palm of my hand. I could wait no longer. I grabbed the snake by its head, digging my finger into its under-jaw, and leapt to my feet, standing upright with that huge king cobra coiled around my waist. It writhed and tugged, trying its utmost to free its head and strike me dead. But I did not lose my hold on its head.
I kept twisting its neck until it released its own hold on me and slithered out of the tent. ‘That snake must have measured over seven feet in length, baba. Carpet-sahib could not believe I had fought it with my bare hands.’
‘You have strong hands, Mehmoud,’ I said, staring at his huge hands. I could well believe that he hadwrestled a king cobra, and other creatures besides.
‘Well, I need strong hands for chopping meat and making mutton cutlets for you, baba, not to speak of that Christmas cake, which was heavy going. Don’t eat too much of it, baba, it’s full of richness!’
Ruskin Bond’s first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written several novels (including Vagrants in the Valley, A Flight of Pigeons and Delhi Is Not Far), essays, poems and children’s books, many of which have been published by Penguin India. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 1999.
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