Some nights we went frog catching. We used to go after dinner on
scooters to a river about 10 kms away. The method was simple. One
person shone a torch on the wet banks of the riverbed, blinding the
vision of the frog, which would stop dead in its tracks, while another
nabbed it with his bare hands from behind. (Frogs must be taken alive
or else the snakes won't eat them.) It was easy to catch the frogs as
they remain quite still for the few seconds it takes to catch them, the
difficult part being only to ensure that once caught they do not slip
out of your grasp, for frogs are quite wet and slippery. After two to
three hours we would return with 25 to 30 frogs in our sack.
I used to have my food at a small shack where some poor people cooked
meals mainly for the Snake Park staff. One of the popular items was
something called `shample' which was made of vegetables and had lots of
oil floating over it. This was served with bread and it was deep red in
colour and very spicy. After a couple of days of eating this delicious
food, I had a very bad stomach and I had to go to the toilet seven
times that day. That was the end of shample. I decided to stick to dal
and chappaties, and cheap creamrolls.
The bathroom of the snake park looked very dirty and I usually avoided
having a bath.
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