YENTHA (Trivandrum, India) 21 February 11 Bitten, Vava Suresh Continues To Love Snakes (Shameem Faruque)
Foreign channels have not shown this dark, lean, short man smartly chasing deadly snakes but our dailies hover around him. The report usually comes with a photo of him fearlessly but carefully holding a King Cobra, reputed to be one of the most venomous in the world.
Recently things came to a standstill when one particular news was splashed in the dailies 'Vava Suresh bitten by a Cobra, in critical condition'. The news further adds that the cobra bit him when he took it out of his bag on public demand. "That is just not true," Vava Suresh vouches from his hospital bed in the general ward of Medical College. It was those mediapersons from three Malayalam dailies who demanded to see the snake.”
He is recuperating though he still suffers from the pain. Amputating a finger is what the doctors are suggesting but he hopes for the best. He admits that a snake as furious as that which was found in its nest with a cluster of eggs, after caught, should not have been out for the second time. But ceding to the press reporters’ demand, he took the cobra out. And that was the big mistake he made.
As he was putting the angry snake back in his small bag - a small school bag that he normally carries - by mistake he kept his ring finger a bit deep into the bag and was immediately caught by the snake. He immediately pulled the snake back, its sharp teeth making an open wound through which blood flowed out and with that some of the deadly venom.
"I did manage to tightly tie my finger but I was holding the snake with my feet so it turned again in anger to bite. As I was handling that situation I forgot to untie my finger which actually made matters worse. And in the midst of all this, the media just vanished from the scene," he adds with a sarcastic smile. The ambulance ' 108 ' also came later than its usual fast-strides. But it seems destiny has decided this brave man lives to tell the tale.
When asked how she copes with her husband's adrenalin rush, Suresh's wife just smiles as if it's very much part of her life now.
This very ordinary looking man doing extraordinary deeds fights the risk all by himself. He is a man in love with snakes and you can see it as he fervently talks about it. He was born to be their savior which explains why though none in his family has ever done this, Vava Suresh chose to face them on par from the time he was twelve years old. Till date, he has rescued close to 5000 snakes! Practise made him perfect with no school teaching him the tricks. He understands that the more his slithery counterpart is scared the gentler he has to handle it.
"Initially I took the aid of a snake catcher but soon I understood that it tortures a snake. So I gave it up. A snake's body is soft and sensitive. The pressure you apply on a snake with a snake catcher is not totally under your control. So that clutch can actually hurt a snake, mostly its brain which is hardly anything in size. And the poor creature won't live for long. So I always gently catch it with my hands. I rescue it from the people around it and the people from a scared and angry snake."
Then it suddenly strikes one that this humble man is actually doing a social service. By leaving the snakes he catches in the forest, he is doing them a great favour. Last year, about 463 snake eggs that he got were taken care of and hatched at his place adding more of these reptiles in the eco system where they play a valuable role.
A passion can never be discouraged. In hospital with swollen fingers Vava Suresh says in a quiet voice that not even an ounce of fear has managed to get into his system. And the people queueing up to see him and listen to his narratives is proof enough that for many, this small made man is a hero in real life. Appreciation do come and with that, invitations to join some group or the other. "I give them a clear NO, I prefer to do my job totally independent," he says firmly.
One can see that he doesn't want to be indebted. Because what he is doing is something very personal and not a job being done for salary. So Vava Suresh with his wife and his little pretty girl called Durga will live away a frugal life. And there is only a humble tone of passion one can detect in him devoid of any regret at his chosen path.
At this moment maybe this soft spoken man won't be readily available to save a snake from your neighbourhood but very soon you will be seeing him once again sprinting around in our city and outside rescuing his hooded friends and letting them free in the wild where they rightly belong, away from most of us who either sprint for life or freeze on spot just hearing that a cobra is around the corner, leave alone seeing one.
Bitten, Vava Suresh Continues To Love Snakes