KARACHI: The been (snake flute) in hand and a big sack made from a ralli (Sindhi quilt), Gul Bahar Jogi walks the length and breadth of Karachi with his means of livelihood, snakes in his pitari (basket), hanging insouciantly over his back and many secrets buried in his heart.

The rings on his fingers, he says, he wears for good luck in earning. And he says that he is grateful to God Almighty to have helped him make both ends meet over these years. “Snake charming is not that big a deal when you have grown up among snakes. Yes, they are dangerous. Their venom can paralyse the heart, making you just a matter of minutes or even seconds. But what else do you expect? A snake is a snake, it will bite,” the snake charmer justifies the reptiles’ action.

And how does he himself deal with this situation? Jogi smiles, and says: “We take out the venom, though it has to be done regularly as the glands that produce the poison create more in about a week’s time. There is also another technique to simply just take out the fangs but then how will the snake eat? Without its fangs, the snake will literally starve to death. So, even though snakes eat very little and after long periods as the rats, rabbits, frogs or eggs they take in and swallow take a very long time to digest, genuine snake charmers do not resort to extracting the fangs. The venom we take out every week is also a means of income for us. We sell it to pharmaceutical laboratories as it is used in preparing a number of life-saving medicines,” he says.

Growing up around snakes makes one unafraid of them.

Other things of medicinal or miraculous powers associated with the snake are the geedar singhi and the manka. The geedar singhi is supposed to be a gland of a jackal that is said to bring power and wealth to whoever possesses it. And the manka is a black stone in the head of a cobra believed to suck all venom from anyone getting a snakebite. Both these things are sold in exchange for a lot of money by the snake charmers.

As for their main means of income, Jogi says: “Well, it is up to the people what they pay us for a show. Some pay us as little as Rs50 but since several people gather to watch the snake swaying and dancing to the tune of the been, we get more or less from each spectator to make a reasonable sum,” he says.

It is fascinating to watch the snake gyrating to the tunes of the snake flute despite the fact that the reptile doesn’t have ears. “Yes, they can’t hear,” a snake charmer, Neel Asman Jogi, says. “Snakes mostly depend on vibrations. As for dancing to the tune of the been, it is more of a hypnotic thing with the snake’s attention fixed on the moving instrument as it tries to keep pace with it.”

A cobra resting in its basket.

About their favourite snake, most snake charmers say that it has to be the cobra. “The cobra is an honourable snake. That is why it is also seen as a deity in the Hindu religion. They worship the naag,” says Neel Asman. There are several stories related to the cobra one of which is that it can change form after reaching 100 years of age. “Well, that’s a myth,” says Neel Asman. “People also say that we saperas are actually 100-year-old snakes who the younger snakes respect and listen to. But it is not true, of course,” he says.

Published in Dawn January 25th , 2015

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