18 years ago
I stepped into the red, cold floor. There it was, the black, slithering and shiny creature. The next thing I remember was a loud cry from my insides.
It is no Harry Potter scene I conceived. Red oxide was very common during those days for flooring.
The place is my home, a real serene village. I was the proud member of a nuclear-joint family set up, where the nuclear families and houses of my father and his siblings shared the same compound. The best thing was, nobody thought of a compound wall then.
The place was rich with greenery, with trees and shrubs along with many dark and not-so-dark creatures sharing the space with grasses and weeds in harmony. Nobody had complaints till summer arrived. During summer, the soil will be shoveled to improve the water retaining capacity (preventing capillary rise, said my science teacher in school), thus removing weeds and grasses, to be regrown again in the next Monsoon. Along with many advantages, those are the days when the reptiles and many other creatures lose their comfort in the grass. They sought ways to keep their body cool, and one resort was our bathroom. Back in those days, we had bathroom outside the house.
Our hero was one such brilliant snake, seeking some cold in that red oxide floor, till the “villainess” enters the scene. All she had to do was a loud scream, and people came running from all the nearby house (my father, cousins etc etc). Needless to say, the rest place was changed to the deathbed in minutes.
Today
