A DEPENDABLE RESCUE MATE
A DEPENDABLE RESCUE MATE
(Dr. Yassar Rafique to my left in blue, Me in red)
I’ve been rescuing birds, animals and reptiles for about
three decades now and some of my most memorable rescue ventures have been with
a good friend and close aide Dr. Yasser Rafique, who by profession is a
Dentist. A common friend introduced me to Dr. Yasser In year 2011 when I moved
to Ahmedabad from Baroda city, a call that was related to my profession as a
‘Naturalist. Sheer passion for Wildlife and rescue, love for nature and
adventurous ventures to explore the wilderness struck instant bond between us. And
then over the years, if either of us received a rescue call, we would
instinctively toss a phone call to other. Coincidently on most occasions we still
end up with an alarming successful rescue rate, as a ‘team’. With time, the
level of our team work got so highly organized that, without any prior
discussion nor with any words spoken, we manage to decipher our ‘next moves’
only with gestures and eye movements right in the middle of the act.
Come monsoons, and the rescue volunteers in this part of Gujarat
would be sick of their phones over relentless reptile rescue calls both from
residential as well as commercial properties. The urban wildlife, as in snakes,
Monitor lizards and other reptiles would create a panic and raise an alarm
amongst the residents of the area, more so from those living on the banks of
the river Sabarmati. On the other hand the rescue call would rise up the
adrenalin rush of most novice rescue volunteers who would be more than eager to
face challenges to buy lives for the wild denizens of urban areas. As a ‘team’
we have plenty of adventurous tales to narrate, each more inquisitive,
hilarious, nerve wrecking and dangerous than other but here are a few that I
share in brief.
One such hilarious
incident was a call from Sanand town which is about 20 Kms from Ahmedabad city.
Yasser received a call of a large python
on a tree in the courtyard of a huge mansion of a local resident. The rescue
call struck the bells at a time when both of us had a very tiring sleepless 24
hours, attending 3 snake-bite cases at the same time the previous night at the
local Civil hospital. Despite running out of steam and heavy eyelids falling,
we decided to hit the road and drive down at noon. On reaching the site as we
entered the courtyard, we saw the men from owner’s family and the neighbors equipped
with sticks, staffs, shovels and axes surrounding the Salvadora persica or a
Piludi tree. We learned that for past 5 hours they’ve been on guard. Taking a while
to figure out the well camouflaged snake above in the tree, we finally figured
out that the much hyped and feared fellow was by no standards a python but 7
feet harmless and petrified ‘Rat Snake’.
Being lighter in weight, I volunteered to climb the tree and
reach out to grab it while Yasser would keep an eye on its movements. As I
climbed higher and closer to the rat snake the petrified reptile decided to
take to the air and jumped off the tree. Yasser, who was ready for the move,
grabbed the poor thing right in the air before it touched the ground. Hilariously
, just as the snake landed in the Doctors hand, the entire contingent of family,
neighbors and onlookers were all seen running away from the tree at top speed that
would put a sprinter to shame accompanied with high pitch shouts and screams.
By the time I climbed down the tree, some inquisitive audience from the
‘runaway band’ cautiously mustered enough courage to get closer to us, one step
at a time, while Dr. Yasser tactfully calmed the snake. I could hear a judgmental
young man educating others in the distant group that we, the ‘educated snake
charmers’ know the art of calming a venomous snake through ‘mantras’ and no
matter how ferocious the snake is, it would not bite either of us because the
‘mantra’s’ that he thought we know were from the Holy Book. Shamefully, less
than a handful people are aware of a ‘Rat Snake’ despite being huge is a
harmless non-venomous reptile.
In yet another incident which is a bit dangerous in nature, I received a rescue call for a snake from the
shanty town of Behrampura area of Ahmedabad right on the banks of the river
Sabarmati, in the old part of the city. Yet again Dr. Yasser joined me, as usual
and we were found walking through the narrow lanes of the encroached
neighborhood. We ended up on ‘ground zero’ which was a two roomed residence with
a tin roof overlapped with plastic tarpaulin sheets to avoid water seepage in
the house, right on the edge of the much talked and acclaimed ‘Ahmedabad River
Front’. Our escort and owner of the house complained that the women of the
house were very scared of the ‘Naag’ (Cobra) also popularly known as ‘Goga’ in
these parts of the world and that it had a habit of using the wooden beam under
the tin roof as its commuting highway all through the night.
Inevitably it was necessary to inspect the roof by climbing
over it and yet again being lighter in weight I was up there while Yasser followed
after a while with a certain amount of difficulty giving the neighbors some
hilarious time. We inspected the roof and decided that every piece of tarpaulin
sheet would have to be removed as it seemed like we were looking for a needle
in a haystack. With some help from the neighbors we achieved this hard feat in
about half an hour but to our horror we found that almost all the sheets of the
tin roof which were bearing our weight for all the while were rusted and were very
fragile to support weight. On safety grounds it was decided that our helpers
will now get down the roof and only the owner of the house will give us a
helping hand as in holding the torch as we inspect the holes, crevices and
spaces between the rusted tin roof sheets. We began lifting the sheets one
after another and placing them on the edges of the roof. It was about an hour
or so and we achieved the feat of successfully letting the moonlight hit about
80% of the house floor. It was then that Yasser bent down to inspect a crevice
between the last remainders of the two overlapped sheets of rusted tin roof and
as he did that he guided our volunteer ‘torch bearer’ friend where to throw the
light and found the ‘Cobra’ calmly peeking at us and wondering what we were up
to.
No sooner our brave ‘torch bearer’ who was a bold volunteer
up to that point in time noticed the snake, on getting a glimpse of it, he
without any consultation, in just two bounds jumped over the exposed wooden
beams and landed eight feet down on the ground, instantly putting an Olympian
high jumper to shame. Here now both of us were, stranded in total darkness, on
a very weak and fragile roof, most of which was which was dismantled, in
company of one of the most venomous snakes of India. With nothing to talk or
share we even held our breath standing at the mercy of the cobra and our fate,
and hoped that our eyesight take lesser time to adjust to the darkness. Seconds
felt like hours and thankfully the cobra made its move after our eyes adjusted
a bit to the darkness over the roof. I was stranded in an awkward situation
with either of my legs resting on the wooden beams and a pathetic piece of
rusted and cracked sheet of tin roof resting on these beams between my legs and
at the same time my left hand was holding the heaviest and the longest of all
the sheets on the roof which I was moving when the snake was spotted. The snake
dashed out and Yasser held it by its tail. But to our horrors in the darkness
of the night and our pathetic fragile situation another nail was added to our
coffin as Yasser lost his grip and the snake made it towards me. Helpless as
nowhere to run to I stood my ground and thanks to the lady luck who smiled at
me, the snake chose to use the rusted tin roof between my legs to get to the
edge of the roof behind me. This time around, Yasser showed more agility than
expected of his huge bulky frame by rope walking the wide wooden beam and managed
a better grip on the tail of the snake which unfortunately for itself failed to
find any hole or crevice to escape. In no time it was in the box, while all
this time I was still struggling with the horrible thoughts of ‘what would have
happened if the cobra would have bit me? All’s Well That Ends Well, now I
believe in that for sure.
The third incident is a thrilling one as the caller, himself
a laborer and his family boldly agreed that no matter what happens to the house,
they want the snake in the box. We received this call from the Danilimda, a
southern suburb of Ahmedabad, again a shanty town where laborers live in
encroached rooms. We reached the ground zero with rains lashing and inspected
the holes on the floor meant to be water outlets. It was from these holes the
caller said that the snake used to peek out and scare the owners of the house. Finding
no alternative as we threw some torchlight into the hole but to no avail, we
concluded that the floor tiles around the hole needs to be removed for better
introspection. The owner of the house, himself a masonry work laborer boldly
agreed to it and supplied us with the needed equipment. We did the needful and
to our horrors we found out that there was series of chained burrows under the
tiles and below in the soil and not just one that led to the outlet hole though
which the snake peeked. This called for more area to be introspected and gladly
we got a willing go ahead from I must say the bold owner of the house. We
requested that the rooms be cleared of all that was lying the house. The family
and neighbors wasted no time in evacuating the entire house. In 40 minutes we
found ourselves in a room which on one side was entirely devoid of tile
flooring and full of burrows in soil floor.
Finally one of the helpers drew our attention to something
that peeked out of a burrow and wasting no time Yasser threw torch light in
that hole. We finally spotted the snake, a Cobra. It withdrew itself in the
burrow but to be safe we begin blocking other burrow openings with stones and
tiles and concentrated on the opening from which the cobra peeked. We took a
few more tiles off and disturbed with the tremors and the vibrations the cobra
dashed out. Again in no time our helpers vanished in thin air as I managed to
grab the snake in the tongs and with some difficulty we managed to put it in
the canvas bag and finally in the box.
My final narration of a rescue incident teaming up with Yasser is both dangerous and risky. On receiving a call from the Vishala area, a western suburb of Ahmedabad both of us made for it. We found ourselves at a marble slab and stone cutting factory and were led to a corner of the factory shade where the snake had taken up a residence. That particular corner of the factory was used as a dumping area for all the unwanted equipment, furniture and discarded stone artifacts and here we were supposed to look for a snake. Step by step, cautiously we moved in checking for every possible place under the rubble where the snake of which we had no idea whether venomous or not may lie. Our luck smiled at us and I heard a rustle in the old and fragile termite affected wooden closet in the corner and as I hit the torchlight there, Yasser identified the snake, a cobra. It knew the closet and the rubble better than us and had no difficulty in disappearing in blink of an eye. Now, that we knew what snake it was and the place what it called home, we grew more confident as in our approach.
We got closer to the broken and fragile closet and begin
tapping it with our hook sticks and our friend was sighted again making way for
a hole in the wall behind the closet. Yasser as usual went for it and grabbed
it by its tail, but the cobra which managed to get the third of its front body
into the hole was not willing to give up at all. I reached for its tail and
grabbed it too and asked Yasser to look for a way to break the partition wall
which looked old and fragile. Yasser now went for the wall and begin hitting
it. Unfortunately, couple of dangerous and alarming setbacks struck us at the
same time. First, the lights in the factory went off and here we were holding a
tail of the venomous cobra in total darkness yet again. But on grounds of the
snake not loosening the grip in the hold and owing to the tension of its body
from the wall to my hands, I could be at ease that its front body was still in
the hole. The second setback was that despite the time lapse and owing to the
vibrations of Yasser hitting the partition wall to break it and release the
snake, the fragile closet gave in and in one fall, fell on me. I lost my grip
on the snake’s tail and had to let it go. By that time a torch was managed and
light thrown on the wall.
The fortunate part here was that on realizing that I had set
its tail free, the cobra too loosened its grip in the crevices of the hole to
move further in and that’s when Yasser held its tail again and pulled it out in
one flow. The cobra was in the box in no time.
When one has a trustworthy, understanding and coordinating team
mate, friend and a brother, there is more than just the safety or the success
level that rises, the contribution to the wildlife rescue is encouraged.
haseebsiddique@hotmail.com
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