The snake and the banyan tree

By our guest travel writer, Helen Cooper.

A few nights ago I went for a walk to see Jerry, the watchman who manned the gates at our complex last year before suddenly being moved to another property without notice. He used to work as a cook in the British Embassy in Muscat, Oman. Anyhow I found out which gates he was manning this year and set off to find him. His new location was only a fifteen minute walk from our apartment down a dirt track and over a causeway. Before long I could see Jerry on the path ahead. He came to greet me like a long lost friend and asked me to bring Norma along next time. We chatted and I headed back down the road towards home.

After a minute or two I met three young men enjoying a beer or two who  were river fishing and invited me to look at their catch. Along the bank there lay a hessian sack a quarter filled with river crabs. These are much smaller than any crabs that we would eat but they assured me they were very tasty and offered to give me enough for dinner. I thanked them kindly but refused.

Not far from these young men was a large arched gateway with huge metal padlocked gates, so I asked what lay behind the neglected construction. An anxious look came upon the face of the fisherman. Oh dear, he said, that is a very bad place and he warned me not to go there. He told me that it was the main entrance to a new five star hotel but that work had stopped because a man had cut down the Banyan tree. This tree was home to a snake and now the snake had no house he explained. The site had been abandoned and the gates locked about eight years ago and the construction workers refused to return.

When I asked what would happen he told me that the land owner would have to get the Hindu priest to come in and exorcise the area to clear it of the bad spirits. It would take some time and no one wanted to work there until the site was made good again. The owner could also build a shrine to the snake and do puja there daily until things were back to normal but it could take many years.

Banyan tree

We asked our driver VJ about this site a few days later and he confirmed the story adding that the healthy man who had felled the Banyan tree had suddenly become ill and had died thus adding credence to these unfortunate events.

Many of the shops and houses here have small dolls, usually made from black fabric with white painted features, hanging at the property entrance. One house close by has four colourful pottery cobras above the doorway, in order to ward away the bad spirits. In this respect beliefs are very much the same as those in Morocco.

This is a photo of a doll, but unusually, this one is grey. 

Black ones below for sale.