Chandu was walking a little ahead of Senan, parting away the plants caught together and clearing the way with a big bamboo stick. In fear of poisonous snakes on the way, they had worn gumboots and beat the wildly grown plants on their way.
Senan was quite upset for the Naga consecrated in the sacred grove being Shesh Naga.
'How do you know?' Senan stopped walking and asked.
Chandu replied unscrupulously and gladly, 'Everyone knows it.'
'But I didn't know it yet,' Senan said lowly and added, 'Perhaps I never asked about it.'
'Yes, yes, that's it,' Chandu said. After a while, he asked turning back at Senan, who had slowed down his walking and seemed very much confused.
'What's the issue whoever Naga is here?'
'It means much in my case. I had a terrible experience with this Naga deity.'
'Did it harm you?'
'No, no, never.'
'I know there are people cursed by Nagas.'
'No, no. my experience was not like that. I was blessed, but overwhelmed with awe even now, when I think about it.'
Senan had such a nightmare long ago when he succumbed to pneumonia. His situation was terrible when he was admitted to the hospital, and the doctor expressed doubts about his recovery.
On the hospital bed the second day, he had a strange dream that he could not believe or relate to anything as he never believed in paying obeisance to the Naga who were taking them simply for life-threatening snakes. Although he had such a Naga temple in his locality, he had never been there.
Late at night, as the nurses on duty near him were taking a nap in their seats, he looked around. As he was admitted to the ICU, he could see the grave silence and chillness of pain and death on every bed. He closed his eyes, not paying much attention to them.
Little by little, he opened his eyes sometimes and found a small picture of Sesh Naga accompanying the newborn Lord Krishna, holding his head above the baby like an umbrella, saving him from the heavy downpour. Since he found a picture of Lord Krishna, he prayed for a speedy recovery and closed his eyes. But the image of Sesh Naga stayed behind his closed eyelids for a while before he slept.
After a few hours, he had a queer dream in which he had been traveling by bus. He had been the only passenger on the bus and was sitting in the front seat next to the driver. When the bus moved a few meters ahead, it was stopped for someone to get in. Senan could see who the passenger was. To his awe, it was none other than a gigantic snake. It had a wide hood but a small body. Senan trembled in fear and cried against letting it get in. The driver and conductor tried to convince him that the snake would not harm anyone, particularly Senan.
Senan was panicked as it stayed below his legs. The conductor told Senan that he did not have to worry about it. The driver laughed at Senan playfully. Meanwhile, the snake looked at Senan with the loving eyes of a deer. Senan could not comprehend the way it looked at him. No sooner did he have his next thought than the naga had devoured his right foot. Senan cried loudly, not in pain but in fear. The driver did not stop the bus, although Senan wanted him to do so.
Moreover, he smiled at Senan in a compromising way. Amidst this, the snake slowly released his leg from its suck without harming him anyway. Still, it retained its loving look at Senan. As soon as it left Senan's leg free, the bus was stopped, and the snake got out. He looked down at the road from the bus, shivering and sweating out in panic. The bus again started, and he got up from the bed in a cry, waking up the ICU patients and staff. They all despised him after hearing that he had the nightmare of a snake-like anaconda.
The next day, to everyone's surprise, Senan's health had a drastic improvement, and was shifted from the ICU. He recovered fast from pneumonia and his doctor called it 'a miracle.' Meanwhile, Senan never revealed the nightmare to anyone since he preferred to disbelieve it.
Later, one of his friends, who had been both a priest and an astrologer, told him that the snake in the nightmare had been the manifestation of Sesh Naga, who saved him from the fatal disease that night.
(to be continued)