Amila's Adventures

Amila was simple boy. 15 years of age. And very fond of flying paper-airplanes. And catching birds. And running after squirrels in the wild. He had his pets a parrot and a navela. There were a lot of snake holes around where he lived. A small village. Very small. Like 15 people in all. And surrounding it were beautiful ponds, and 2 lakes. And there were amazingly different varieties of birds. And so were small land animals like ferrets, rabbits, moles, big rats, and top them all the snakes. There were no roads, only beaten paths branching into the nearby jungles. There used to be a village gatekeeper old man who used to guard the place from unwanted intrusion from bigger animals. 2 flickering lanterns, fed by mustard oil all night, helped keep the carnivores at bay. And ohh plus one big gun. And some fire crackers. Life was simple. Villagers grew wheat, corn, rice, and other eatable grasses. 10 cows, and 4 bulls. Plenty of land to till. The occasional rain would fill up the mud pools, lots of them, and you wouldn't need music at night. There was live orchestra of crickets, and frogs and toads, and insects gangs. Venture out in the evening, and you will have a hallo of insects, mosquitoes and flies following you diligently.

The biggest danger was snakes. So people would keep Navelas, the ferrert sort of animal who has long term enimity with snakes. Amila wasn't afraid of anything. He had his own little lantern and of course his pet navela. Who is afraid of snakes then?

So one day he set out in the jungle with his navela, lantern, and the parrot. The plan was to catch pigeons. He setup a trap which was basically an inverted jute saucer about 2 feet wide, and half tilted with wheat, rice, and other grains spread underneath it. As soon as the pigeon would come, he would pull the string, causing the jute saucer fall over the bird and trap it. He sat and waited and waited, and no pigeons came. Just different birds. Bored with wait, Amila slept over in the nearby bush. When he woke up, he found the saucer was fallen already! WOW! Excited Amila ran near the saucer to find that there is no pigeon but two big snakes under the saucer! Holy cow. Holy Snakes. Now what to do? Make snakes as pets? Take them home? What if they bite me? How to get the saucer back now? His mom would kill him for losing to snakes. Amila thought and thought. Finally an idea struck him. He slid the saucer here and there on ground until the tails of the snakes came out. He knotted the two tails together nicely. He lifted the saucer off, as the snakes interwined . And ran back home with his lantern, and navela, and ohh yeah the saucer.