snakes
Keeping snakes as pets
George was allotted a petrol pump -- on compassionate grounds. What compassion -- George himself does not remember. But it must be in the files. But what files? The files are conveniently lost. So they are going to devise a system -- of tracking the files. The post office has similarly developed a complex machine that can tell you where exactly is your speed-posted article at this very moment. Imagine the railways also did a similar exercise for slightly bigger objects -- like the goods wagons. These are all great original contributions of ours -- gone unnoticed. No Nobel awards or Oscars for these unsung efforts. In order to be noticed you have to be different. How? Read on..
They have installed a brand new computer system at Rajnandgaon. You can book any service here -- a pager or a cell-phone, a gas connection or a passport, a pending garbage clearance, renewal of driving license or sorting out of the bijli billing blues. Anything -- as I told you.
The machine has been endowed with enormous information and knowledge. It can spew out you anything about everything -- yes! absolutely everything. It can tell you when would you be getting the requested service. What is the estimated delay? How many people are waiting ahead of you? It can search and find, out of them, how many for example, have registered as Zabrovskys. If you are interested, you can interrogate and be informed, how many amongst them are Q.Zabrovskys. How many of the QZs have registered from the Canal street? What proportion amidst them is waiting for more than three yeas? Believe me, you can ask any question and get the response. It is a fantastic machine they have devised. Credit is certainly due.
A friend of mine keeps snakes as pets. There are holes in his house for each one of them, snakes. There is one for the king cobra, one for the rattle snake, one for the python and so on. The holes are appropriately sign-written at each entrance. So you may know which snake lives where. Else you may knock at the wrong door. You may be ringing the bell for the cobra and the rattle snake may be disturbed in its slumber. My friend considers this as a great service to the snake community.
Assume for a moment -- you get your gas connection across the counter, that is, without having to approach a VIP in the constituency. There can be no appreciation then, for the Rajnandgaon kind of information cannon. Imagine you can lift a replacement LPG cylinder from the super market, just as you would take away a cake of soap -- you will no more be making those reminder calls to the gas agency. And if the trains were running in time, you do not have to live in the platforms waiting for the hardly-ever-obliging-announcements. If you do not have to visit the ration shops frequently, what will life be like? Have you ever wondered? I wondered. And concluded -- life will be uninteresting and dull, so not worth living. I may even feel like committing suicide!
Everything is okay if you kept dogs or kittens as pets. Even iguanas! But serpents? By Joe, no. When the first two worlds are busy maintaining data bases for the national productivity, potential foreign markets and of the new crop of scientists, doctors and engineers, we wish to have information of the delays, cost and time over-runs! How long is my queue? When will I get to reach the counter? Will the counter remain open until then? Or just close for lunch? Will the babu be in a good mood to receive me? And finally will my RAC be confirmed as a sleeper?
Agreed, waiting is painful. Having to wait for a promised service should be an exception than the rule. If you do not have to wait, the waiting rooms can be abolished. Also the furniture within. And the endless chai-paani that is mandatory. And also the frayed tempers. You do not have to stand the irate passengers free lunch, just because the flight is delayed. You do not have to provide the courtesy coach or starred accommodation for the night!
Visitors to my friend are unkind. To them, keeping snakes is not as disputable as maintaining signposts for them. I disagree. Do not bring the snakes inside in the first instance. Then we do not talk of house-keeping for them. But if you do bring them in, I guess, them snakes deserve a decent existence. They are entitled for clean pollution-free quarters with supporting infrastructure. These essentials may not be construed as frills.
It is the constant change that adds spice to mundane life. Elsewhere people change cars not because the automobiles cease to function, but because they have been rendered out of fashion and a new model has become long overdue. They also change the wallpaper, not because the wallpapers have become unserviceable, but because the inmates have grown tired of the existing ones. They do not like the pattern any more.
When a water pump does not work, or when the car stalls, you perceive a purpose in life. When they function fine, you have nothing to keep you engaged. So you change the car that is already giving excellent service or engage in a replacement spree with a new improved wallpaper.
When you cannot afford that brand new car or the wallpaper, you end up keeping snakes and therefore maintaining pits for them.