Sculptor doubles as guardian for baby rat snakes

MUMBAI: Baby snakes can be as affectionate as little dogs and kittens, claims national award-winning sculptor Ramakant Suryavanshi who became an accidental foster father to a bunch of baby rat-snakes. He hand-reared the baby snakes after a huge rat snake laid eggs in his house during the rains last year.
"As they were fed fish hatchlings and given fresh water to drink, the babies seem to have become 'imprinted' with myself as their mother," the 55-year-old Jalgaon-based metal-smith told TOI.
"So much so, eventually when I tried to release them in a forest, they kept coming back to lick and kiss my face," says the artist who has won numerous awards for his bronze icons, including a tamra-patra from the then President R Venkataraman in 1979. He has also won state awards, and some of his masterpieces have been acquired by European curators.
"The juvenile rat-snakes finally left only after I patted them and kissed them. I had to literally plead with them to leave. Even as they left, they kept looking back as in farewell. Their behaviour seems completely contrary to the fearful beliefs and superstitions people have about snakes."
He has now put up photographs of the snakes wriggling around his hands and head at a stall outside Jehangir Art Gallery at the ongoing Kala Ghoda Festival, where his son, Bhagawatiprasad is selling terracotta Ganeshas. "I'm campaigning against cutting of trees and killing of snakes. I want to reverse the negative image that snakes have in our society."
However, Suryavanshi also confesses to have started out as a snake-killer himself. "Every year during the rains, dozens of snakes used to come out in the Lakadbazaar area, with its saw-mills and anthills," he said, "and my first reaction used to be to grab a stick and kill them." He had a change of heart after seeing a TV programme, which highlighted the ecological importance of snakes and how they could be safely caught and saved by relocation.
Thus began his second career as a Sarpa Mitra or the friendly neighbourhood snake-catcher, which has led to the rescue and rehabilitation of hundreds of serpents over the last 15 years. He now keeps getting calls at odd times from concerned citizens and officials. Last year alone, he claims to have saved over 500 snakes including many poisonous cobras, kraits and vipers. "The majority were harmless varieties like trinket snakes, wolf-snakes and dhaman, which ought to be worshipped as the Indian farmers' finest friends," he said.