[Assam] Python Park at Pabitora

[uttam borthakur]

It could only be for myopia that I did not see Pabitora earlier. Is not it amazing that only sixteen square kilometers of sub-tropical forest and marshy land can present so many wonders? Ninety one rhinoceros cooped up in that small area. In contrast to the Kaziranga rhinos, they look well- fed, and perky at times. Explanations abound, they not only graze they browse as well. Only a few hundred kilometers away, their kith and kin lack the sheen, because they only graze. May be there are more nutrients in the grass.But I attribute it to the white magic of Mayang, where yellow flowers of mustard greens stretch far away into the late November evenings.
 
Does anyone among you know the difference between a Pheti Xaap and a Mossowa? Earlier explanations to me revealed that the former strikes with its fangs, the latter strikes with its tail with a tooth. The herpetologists could not find for me a snake with a buck tooth in its tail. As they studied herpetology in English, they were unaware about the zoological equivalent of the word Mossowa in Assamese. Magical Mayang had an easy answer for me in store. Mossowa is male; Pheti female: makes sense.
 
With the recent erudition, I stepped confidently into the Python Park , where the paddle boat in the moat runs only in the reverse! The park has a concrete enclosure. A driftwood of considerable size covered with creepers and grass adorns it. I looked over the wall to see what was inside. The gardener meekly informed that there was a huge python, but one day it simply vanished, may be into the blue, who knows?. Magic of Mayang; python goes, driftwood remains. But the gardener was not so sure; it may be still lurking under the overgrowth, he says mysteriously; but none dares to cross-over the wall to find it, because a pair of Mossowa and Pheti is often seen in their love-dance inside the walls. 
 
No python in the “ Python Park ”: what’s in a name, so they say also in Mayang.
No exclusivity for us there.
 
Uttam Kumar Borthakur


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