Nag Panchami, Serpent Worship Day

Summer 2006, my niece, Mahima, from Canada took these pictures, she was thirteen, very brave she was.

A snake charmer wandered down our street. They are banned by law but this one came along so we had a private snake show.

When we were kids the monkey man and bear man used to come around every Saturday we had a show in our garden.They had the animals enact little stories into the event. The monkey husband and wife had a fight and she would run off to her mother 's house. The poor husband would follow her and offer her gifts to please her and bring his beloved spouse back home.

Now you know where we got our knowledge of marital discord from.But I always pitied the bears because they looked so hot and agitated.I wanted them free.

The last bear man came around twelve or thirteen years ago. We recorded the dance on video, VHS, I don 't have the means to upload it on the computer.

Now such activities are prohibited by law and I 'm glad they are.

But there is tribe of snake charmers
They trap snakes and 'cure '

snake bites. There is a village of snake charmers close to our town.

I want to add here that I hate circuses as the animals and performers are not looked after properly. During my childhood we went to circuses every year, but the last one I saw was 5 or 6 years back and I disliked it

Everybody looked so undernourished. I wanted to go up and free all the wild cats.There is a circus in town and I don 't like its presence.

Today is Nag Panchami, a day Hindus worship snakes.They go to temples or make snakes idols and offer them milk, rice,honey and flowers.The snake charmers do brisk business as the devotees offer them money.

But each year thousands of snakes die in the offing as they starved before the festival so they can drink the milk offered by the worshippers.They are killed because of over feeding and over handling.There are NGOs trying to educate people about this.