One of the questions I’ve been getting repeatedly from forest-lovers ever since I started this channel is: “Will putting up forests attract crawling insects, creatures and snakes?” I have addressed this issue a couple of times. So today I shall speak about the precautions you can take in this regard. I stay in this place not because I’m not afraid of snakes. I am just as afraid of snakes as you are, perhaps more. When I was a child of three or four, my family did not have the resources to buy me a lot of toys. I doubt if they would have bought many even if they had the money. So we resorted to mimicry. If we caught hold of an Amul tin or a biscuit box, we suspended it from our shoulders using a coir rope, and made it our drum. I spent my childhood at my mother’s ancestral house.

One day as I walked around with a drum in hand, I came across a hen coop and tapped on its tin sheet, just for fun. Feeling the vibration, a rat snake that had hidden there to catch chickens slithered away as fast as it could. Screaming, I took to my heels. Both of us fled in fear of each other. As I ran around the house, someone came out, frightened the snake away, and picked me up. I’m glad those were pre-mobile days because otherwise the video would have gone viral throughout the world. Since then I have been afraid of snakes. I heard a lot of tales too about how, even though a rat snake never bit anyone, it would twine itself around our legs and insert its tail in our ear. No one had ever seen such a sight but that did not prevent anyone from making up stories. And all of the stories were very scary.

Indeed, snakes caused a lot of fear during pre-electricity times. People would step on them by accident, get bitten and die. With no modern means of transport available, taking the snake-bite victim to a physician took time. This worsened the problem. Even P. Krishna Pillai, one of the luminaries in the political field of Kerala, died of snake bite. Such deaths were commonplace then. But how many people, personally known to you, have died of snake bite within the last 25 years? How many people were bitten when they did not step on snakes? Obviously then, most accidents happen when people step on them accidentally, or when people try to catch them. Unlike cats and dogs, snakes do not chase and attack us. The entry of electric lights in Kerala caused the disappearance of two things: ghosts and fear of snakes. According to an old story, when Raja Ravi Varma, the famous painter and member of the Travancore royal family, went to the Padmanabhapuram palace that had been temporarily closed, the sight of one’s own shadow or a moving banana leaf or the sound of a flying bat was enough to frighten anyone.

Today, with the electrification of our streets, we do not fear the possibility of confronting a snake. As for the safeguards we can take, let’s remember that snakes do not attack unless we provoke or step on them accidentally. A cat in our office mess scratched six or seven employees within the last couple of months, possibly because there was some delay in feeding it fish. Snakes don’t injure us, complaining that we don’t give them mice to eat. My colleagues had to get themselves vaccinated against rabies. A few others met with road accidents at Kowdiar, where our office is situated, when dogs ran across the road right in front of their motorbikes. In comparison, snakes don’t do so much harm. Therefore, firstly, we have to erase our fear of snakes. Secondly, we should take enough precautions.

Generally speaking, we build expensive houses but fail to fix wire meshes on our windows and air holes, in the name of beauty. But they are very effective in keeping off mosquitoes, other insects and flies. They are not very expensive either. So, this is one method you can adopt to prevent snakes from entering your houses. Another is to use wire mesh to cover holes made in walls for exhaust fans, and outlets made for drain pipes. Mice can enter our houses through drain pipes. Snakes too. The drain holes in our washrooms and sinks are fitted with filters. But take care to see that the outlet pipe protruding outside the house is not too short. Extend it so that the opening is at some distance. Snakes will not crawl through long pipes. Even if they do, there is protection at this end. All these precautions should be enough.

This house has a tiled roof. Usually there is a gap between the rafters and the wall. That too may be covered with a wire mesh. We have done that here. The next point to think about is where snakes are likely to be seen. They don’t come into houses inside forests but rather in cities. This has happened in my own case and those of my friends residing in cities. That is because we lay tiles all around our houses, leaving them no space to occupy. Here, only one side of these walls as well as the foundation of this house has been plastered over. There are holes on all other sides, and the snakes can lie there.

Consider this logic. Cobras and king cobras have hoods which they spread when they face humans. The rest of the snakes usually slither away on sensing any movement. The hooded varieties hiss in order to warn us off their territory. It is only when we move into their personal space, within their lunging distance, that they bite us. Therefore, respect that distance. Generally, they move away on sensing vibrations. The viper is lazy by temperament and may not move. In such cases, we should use torch light or other sources of light. Snakes need not be feared. We have greater reason to be afraid of stray dogs, cats and monkeys. Snakes are held in fear because of certain concepts we have carried about them through generations.

Here, we have made other arrangements– a water-filled trough all around the house – in imitation of what I saw at a house in Pondicherry. I was told that snakes will not cross it. But I have seen snakes swim, especially rat snakes. The other varieties may not think of drinking the water and then crossing the veranda, in order to creep into the house. In any case, there is the wire mesh to prevent their entry. And this trough will keep ants and other insects away. So if we think of the number of people who have suffered unprovoked attacks from snakes, we will realize they are not dangerous. Once when I shared this logic with my wife, she said it was perfect but wondered whether it agreed with the logic of the snakes! Maybe you too have this rejoinder in mind.

But remember that if you can take certain minimum precautions, like putting up wire meshes, you can confidently put up a forest close to your house. But if there are small children at home, and these safety measures are not enough, put a fence around your forest and secure it further with a nylon net similar to the one we use to cover our wells with. A snake will find it difficult to pass through a net, either into the forest or out of it. This is also an inexpensive solution to the problem.