The more the snakes swayed, the more Jakhra, who was kneeling when the show started, raised himself up and up. The muscles of his face became more and more tense every minute. It looked as if he was dragging air from the deepest hollows of his stomach and stuffing it in his flute.

And there was justification too for all this, for he had lured into his basket a divine pair of cobras that would never have come under the spell of any spirit. And, even if they had, they would never have remained prisoners had it not been for the magic power he had inherited from his dead father. And which, at least in these parts, had not been equaled. At the instance of the village head, he was giving his first public performance that afternoon.

The cobra pair was swaying in the direction of the alluring music of the flute. Their movements were like the motion of the fresh, big ears of bajra (millet) swaying with the wind passing over the fields. The audience was deeply absorbed in what they saw. All eyes were fixed on the pair. The two snakes, with their graceful curves, looked like two lean bodies standing bent at the waist.

This was the supreme moment of Jakhra's life. It was the moment of fulfillment of that sacred power which his father had passed on to him, and for the attainment of which the apprentice had to undergo arduous training.

Jakhra's quest had begun many years ago. Old Ladhu, who in the end could not maintain purity, initiated his only son into the sacred power so that it should not be forgotten. At the same time he warned his son about the difficulties and dangers of the path. He said the pursuit of the path demanded a purity that would go beyond the austerities of the yogis of Jullundur. He emphasized that the threefold purity of mind, body and speech was absolutely essential if one wanted to follow this way. The slightest deviation--and one would roll down to the valley from the heights of attainment.

Jakhra was then very young; yet he was not inexperienced in the field. When his father went from village to village with the basket of 'animals' on his shoulders, Jakhra would accompany him carrying the tarpaulin bag in which would be stuffed the flute, the bowl, the snake-charmer's bag and other odd things. When the show was on, his father would concentrate on the snakes. And Jakhra would pick up small coins thrown by the onlookers in the dust. He made all the preparatory arrangements before the show began--such as playing the little trumpet to draw the crowd--first the children and then the grown-ups, clearing the ground, letting out the mongoose from the bag and fixing the peg in the ground. In the meanwhile Ladhu would smoke dhatura to prepare himself for his work. At the end of the show, when he threatened the children to get some flour from home (and cursed their mothers if they did not bring any) and when the fear-ridden children did at last bring some leftover stuff, it was Jakhra who collected it in his bag.

It was the practice that the father and the son should get out of the town by evening. They had to face the police if they failed to do so.

Actually, when they left the border of the town, they had to allow the guard to inspect all their paraphernalia--in case they were hiding a basket a high-caste child!

The father and the son would go into the forest and take out the crumbs of bread. If there was not enough to eat, Ladhu would make Jakhra eat even if he himself had to go hungry. He would pour milk in a shallow bowl for the snakes. At times, when the rays of the moon, filtering through the thick, vast tamarind tree, played hide-and-seek on Jakhra's rosy, charming face, Ladhu thought of Jakhra's mother who had been as rosy and as charming. But the ascetic in Ladhu would bring him back to his senses. He would say to himself: 'You were mad about her; as such you lost your hold over that magic power which is worth lakhs of rupees. Can the pursuer of this path ever afford to be mad about a woman? It needs strong will-power. If you make the slightest mistake, in no time it would take your own life. It is difficult to master the art. But it is more difficult to exercise it even after you have mastered it. You can cool the milk of a lioness only in a gold bowl--for it won't cool in an earthen pot. When the Ganges was brought down to the earth, was not the great Mahadev himself present on the scene in person?'

And at moments like these, Ladhu's irrepressible ambition would begin to stir and whisper in his ears: 'Let your son fulfill the unfulfilled desire of your heart. Let the magic not be forgotten. Let your son do what you could not do and put to shame all the charmers of the entire area.'

Prompted by pride and ambition, he ordered Jakhra to remain a brahmachari. An ascetic's life is full of hard tasks and sacrifices. Right from his childhood Jakhra had been living the hard life of self-denial. He would not even look at a six-month-old female child. All women were looked at as a sister or a mother. He would not eat forbidden food. He would not drink the water polluted by someone else. He would keep his body clean. He would not slip his feet into his shoes without tapping them thrice to shake off the dust and reciting the ordained mantra. And if, even by mistake, he touched an 'unholy' man, he would promptly have a bath.

Jakhra grew up to be very handsome--graceful like a peacock. He was a well-proportioned mixture of his father's strength and his mother's grace. Rigorous training of the mind and a vigilant control over the senses gave a lustre to his handsome face. Every line of his body, and the dazzling expression on his face, spoke eloquently of his attainment in his art at so young an age.

He put to test his knowledge of the magic by experimenting on a pair of cobras. It was rumoured that the pair was living in an ant-hill in a field at Ujadia. Great snake-charmers had played on their flutes till they could play no more, but those snakes had not so much as stirred themselves. Jakhra went there and began to play his flute studded with white, pure shells. Two days passed but nothing happened. On the third day the cobras could no longer resist its sweet melody. They could not help swaying their bodies to its tunes. Majestically, the pair slid out of the ant-hill. The spell cast by his music made the cobras lie stiff like pieces of wood in Jakhra's basket.

In his last moments, Ladhu had said: 'God will be pleased with us only if we think of even the animals as our own flesh and blood. A captive snake should be released on the fifteenth day. If held even a day more it will amount to harassing dumb creatures and God will punish us.' Guided by this counsel, Jakhra was aware that once the poisonous gland of the snake was removed even a child could safely play with it. Still, as one who was proud of the maddening melody of this flute, he felt that he could control the deadliest of snakes without pulling out their fangs. So Jakhra had not bothered doing this with the pair of cobras in the basket.

The wind carried the news of Jakhra's feat. The elders in the village sent for him. Jakhra set the stage for the play. The swelling audience was rapt in attention. All eyes were concentrated on the cobras as they swayed in ecstasy. But there was a pair of eyes that was fixed not on the flute or the swaying cobras but on the handsome player of the flute. To those eyes, the one who could sway the cobras was more entrancing than the swaying snakes. They were the eyes of Teja Ba, who was behind the balcony door at the gate of her mansion. She was the new Thakurani. Teja Ba was the very fountain of beauty and grace. The entire village was under her spell. Teja Ba was so proud that she did not even care to glance at great princes. But it was Teja Ba's greatest despair that she had not come across anyone who matched her. However, when she saw Jakhra, she at once felt that he was the man she would most certainly like to have.

Jakhra, puffing up his cheeks as big as coconut shells, was swaying, and with him was swaying the pair of cobras. In the center of the hood of the male cobra was a lovely pale black mark. And that dark, beautiful hood on the bhuish-white neck of the cobra was very charming indeed. It reminded one of the chhatra over the Shivalinga. And the female cobra, swaying by the side of her male, expressed her power through her majestic curve which was very much like the arch of Puradwar. Jakhra's eyes, ears and nose, his entire self, were now concentrated only on the snout of the male cobra and on the brightly shining eyes of his female. Jakhra had become one with his flute.

Those eyes that were lowered in that evocative silence--why didn't they rise up just once, just for a moment?

Finally, Teja Ba brushed her bangles on the door--so that those eyes would be diverted to her.

And at the tinkling sound, for a moment, yes, only for a moment Jakhra's eyelashes rose.

And in that wink of a moment, just in that brief moment, Jakhra had the experience of his lifetime. The cobra pair had reached the pinnacle of joy when the notes of the flute had reached their climax. To bring them back from their ecstatic swaying, the tempo of the flute music was to be gradually slowed down. Instead, there was a sudden break--and that disturbed the absorbed cobras. And the result was terrible.

With a frightening hiss the hooded cobra struck Jakhra's palm, and its sharp teeth made a wound there. The flute slipped from Jakhra's hand. There was confusion in the crowd. But Jakhra was still alert. He somehow managed to get cobras back in the basket.

Very soon a glass-green round mark rose where the cobra had struck. The coins that the appreciative audience had thrown for him remained untouched, and Jakhra, resting his head on the basket in which he had just shut the cobras, fell into a swoon.

Promptly the news spread all over town that Jakhra had been bitten by the cobra.

One of the people in the crowd remarked: 'You may bring up a snake on milk, but it is a snake after all!'

'And then,' came another remark, 'however small, a cobra is always a terrible thing. Poison will always kill a person.'

And again: 'Is it not said that a mason would die as he is building and a pearl-diver would die in the stormy sea? the snake charmer too dies through his snakes!'

'Is it a joke, keeping such enormous snakes in such baskets? It is a task as difficult as walking on a razor's edge. One must do penance like the most austere yogis--and one must deny oneself lots and lots of things. Only with the power of such purity can these animals be kept under control!'

'Moreover, an elderly, experienced snake charmer may at least try to do something. This Jakhra is a mere boy. What could he do?'

'Believe me, this profession of snake charmers is an art by itself--and it is a very difficult art at that. You must look after the snakes as if they are your own children. You can't keep them in your basket longer than a fortnight.'

'Even within that limit, is it a joke to have a pair of cobras dance to the tune of the flute! You must have a heart of steel. Their eyes must be always lowered. Even if the bracelets of the lady of the house jingle, the eyes of the snake charmer should never look up.'

'That is how you can go along the path of knowledge. And knowledge is like mercury. Only the deserving and the learned can digest it. It is easy to learn the trade of the snake charmers; but it is difficult to acquire real mastery of the art!'

The Bhuva of Vacchda, who was the greatest expert in the whole area, came to relieve Jakhra of the poisonous sting of the cobra. He chanted mantra after mantra, and he tried his very best, but he was still unable to bring any relief.

People were disappointed. Jakhra was lying stiff, as if in deep sleep. He seemed to have no consciousness at all!

The audience expressed its disappointment in various ways. They were like a challenge to the bhuva, who now started chanting his mantras desperately. But his efforts were futile. He tried the final remedy against snake-bite. He took a long piece of cloth and recited some more mantras, his last warning to the snake. Now everybody expected the poison from Jakhra's wound would come out. If not, the bhuva would start tearing that piece of cloth from end to end, and the snake too would get torn like that!

People sitting beside Jakhra's body heard him mutter something in his semi-conscious state. They thought he said: ‘Bhuva, why are you harassing those dumb creatures in the basket? Had it been only the poison of the snake, it would have gone long ago. But with it is mixed that other poison which is sweet and yet sour--and there your magic won't work.' And, even before the bhuva could properly try his last trick, Jakhra lay lifeless.

But those two eyes, glistening bright behind the balcony door, remained fixed on Jakhra's body.

Chunilal Madia is one of the foremost writers of Gujarati. S. J. Mohan is a translator/academic.