The Great Indian Cobra - a photo on Flickriver

The Indian Cobra is one of the most dreaded and awed animal in the Hindu Culture and Mythology. There are several Myths surrounding this amazing animal. Most of it is respect and lots of fear too. At its spectacular best the cobra wide open with its hood like you see here is a fantastic sight to see. I had to keep 4 snake charmers around me since i cannot move away fast in case of a strike.

This animal of course was milked 2 minutes before this shot was made and even if it does bite the worst would be a swelling the size of a football where ever it bites and lots of pain of course. I was at the Irula Snake farm at the crocodile bank when i shot this wonderful reptile. There were expertly trained snake charmers who had put it atleast 30 plus years, four of them around me while i shot a picture of this. I had to get down a 9 foot pit where these snakes and a few hundred others were stored.

Nothing really to boast but i was less than 2 foot away from this one and accidentally fired the flash too and felt a chill run down my spine when it turn right up my face and looked. I knew snakes have poor eyesight but excellent sense of heat and a flash is enough heat to sense. I froze so hard that i could not take the picture of this snake looking directly at me.

It was one scary picture to take because there was creepy crawly snakes, litreally at least 200 of them, different varities of them around me. This picture was shot almost a year back with my old Sony DSC H1 and i somehow forgot to post this and i have no clue why. While im upgrading to vista 64 bit and have no access to DPP or Photoshop i cannot process my RAW images for now and found this picture browsing through archives.

The hiss sound this snake makes is so powerful its like as if someone blew a motorcycle tyre or something. Magnificient to see, fast as lightning to strike and powerful as it can ever be the Indian Cobra deserves its respect and fear and its eternal place in indian mythology and hindu culture.

If you really want to know more about Indian Snakes there is one man on flickr you gotta check out. The one and only "Captain Suresh Sharma". He rescues snakes in his neighbourhood and rehabilitates them, he runs a organization called www.snakecell.org and educates people about snakes.

Visit his website and its truck loads of info you would otherwise never get to know about snakes. Check out his Snake Pictures and they speak for themselves. I cant really do physical stuff like Suresh does but if 100 of you see his work and 1 or 2 of you decide to help him do his work i think indian snakes would have a better chance for survival. Whatever you do, don't kill them, just read around suresh's website and listen to stuff he has to say, that will tell you better.

Taken in: India / Tamil Nadu / Chennai / Vepery (show map)

Taken on: April 9, 2006

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Sony CyberShot DSC H1

Indian

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Cobra

Indian Cobra

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Camera: Sony DSC-H1, f/3.5, 1/60 sec, 13.5mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony DSC-H1
Aperture:	f/3.5
Exposure Time:	0.017 sec (1/60)
Focal Length:	13.5mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Return detected
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows
Show full info

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