“Are you crazy?” one of them with the big moustache says, as he looks at me. Looks like the creature heard me because as I cry, its hood turns to me and he shifts his position a little. Its forked tongue comes out and it attains to its full height. Black skin with faint pale yellow cross bands down the length of the body and smooth scales.

A creature with hypnotising power!

I too am in that state because I continue gazing in its eye when one bite from it can kill me. Slowly, without lifting my gaze from it, I say, “Try to lift it softly from its tail through stick”

“It will attack” says the girl still sobbing.

“No, it won’t” I say, directing her through my hands, “Go, run!”

“What?”

“I said run. He is not looking at you now and don’t forget to tie a piece of cloth to that wound of yours. Everyone” I say, “Please,make some space. Don’t choke it. It is afraid of us that’s it”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, the mass behind me starts lessening and the spot becomes free at last. Still some curious glares at my back are directed towards the creature.

“Go, now” I say to the creature “No one will hurt you. Go,”

Some minutes of earth-shattering silence are there with breath hitched in my throat. I do not flinch my gaze and keep on staring in its eyes. Finally, giving me and my audience a huge relief, it crawls in another direction.

Until the time I make it to my house, I am exhausted with no strength to attend the evening’s event. I say this thing to mum too to which I get this reply

“Don’t be like this Ra” she gives that annoyed look to me through the corner of her newspaper, which she is reading at the moment.

“Deepak has helped you so much. You should at least give him that much credit”