By Anil Sharma, IANS
Udaipur : Chaman Singh Chauhan is no ordinary teacher. He takes classes on snakes, their habits, their habitats and even how to catch them!
Everything and anything on snakes is taught in his class – their identification, their ways, antidotes to their bites and also anecdotes associated with the slithering beings.
Chauhan, a snake lover, has been taking these classes for nearly four years now at his home in Udaipur, the city of lakes in India’s desert state of Rajasthan – and that too free of cost. He is otherwise employed with an NGO that works for animal care.
His classes on snakes attracts 10-15 people each session. And his students could be anywhere between 9 years old and 25 years old.
“Around four years ago I killed a python by mistake. Later I felt guilty and I became a snake lover. I even took formal training in Gujarat on catching snakes,” Chauhan, in his mid 30s, told IANS.
“Since then I have been attending to people’s complaints on snakes and so far I must have caught over 1,200 snakes. I get calls from Udaipur and surrounding areas as well,” he said.
“But apart from catching snakes, I also wanted to spread awareness about them,” said Chauhan, who loves playing with snakes too.
While his theory classes look like any normal tuition session, his practical lessons – complete with live snakes for demonstration – could give anyone a fright. Snakes are caught for imparting knowledge to students and they are later released in the nearby forest area, he clarified.
“I tell my students that in Rajasthan over 250 species of snakes are found and of these only four are poisonous. Cobra and viper are the most poisonous and most of the snakes do not come near human territory,” explained Chauhan, who is considered an encyclopaedia on snakes.
“We have a lot of misconceptions about snakes. Most of the snakes are man’s friend as they save crops in the field by eating rats and other rodents,” he pointed out.
And his special classes are those on how to catch snakes. “These are usually spread between five and seven days,” he said.