One night last week, Bagli started barking and we went out to the Front verandah to investigate. It was her "snake bark", and sure enough, it was a snake in the flower beds under the Front verandah ledge. We could hear it clearly, and see it vaguely, but none of our torches was bright enough to identify it.

We called Bagli away and tied her in the front verandah. Comet, who was visiting us was tied in the cowshed. He heard all the commotion, wrenched himself out of his collar buckle and came to the Front verandah to join the party. Badri Baba got the camera and took a few pictures: That was when we identified it as a Russell's viper.

I took a stick and tried to nudge it away from the house. It started its characteristic 'Pressure cooker" hiss and kept it up for  a couple of minutes. Bagli started barking and the snake stayed put. We have never had this problem with snakes before. Next we tried splashing it with water ; but it just hissed and stayed put.

The boys decided that it was too scared to move and that we should just leave it alone for a (long) while. Finally after about 45 minutes, it slowly inched away from the house . And we released Bagli, and returned to bed and story-reading.