Yes, the first major festival in the month of Shravana, that is Nag Panchami. Sure there was Shravani Somwar and the Mangla Gaur, absolutely made famous incidentally by that blockbuster last year. Yes, I am referring to "Baipan Bhari Deva". No, I have not watched it. Just heard a lot about it .
Despite such modern media acceptance of the other Shravana festivities, nothing can match the uniqueness of Nag Panchami. Sure the cobra is everywhere in the Hindu ideation, be it the cobra around Lord Shankara's neck or be it the Shesha who helps Lord Vishnu relax. No sectarian trouble mongering, you see. Why, Shesha was the rope of the churning during the Amrut Manthan. We, moreover, have Krishna's Kaliya and there is the Takshak Dahan story when it comes to Pandavas' Indraprastha.
Why is the cobra, or any snake for that matter, so centrally important in our mythology? Actually, the snake figure is present in most all religions. An example may suffice. The Satan tempts Eve, and the body he assumes is that of a snake, a serpent.
I suppose this centrality comes from both, the fear and the usefulness. A serpent has a lethality, an uncertainty that breed fear. Its very movement, a wriggle, is tough to decipher. In comparison, even the fiercest lion appears less dangerous. It can be a pet, not a snake though. The snake charmers of yesteryears used to remove the poison fang before handling a snake!
Actually it is useful in many ways. Even its venom is hugely useful. Ask the Hafkin Institute. Once I saw the way they extract a cobra's poison. I still remember the yellow, slightly greenish, poison dripping in to the pipette.
As for farmers, a cobra is the best friend as it eats up rodents, mice, and other such pests. No wonder, in our agrarian economy which dominates even today, a snake is important. Hence the lovely folk tale about Nag Panchami. These days, however, snake charmers do not go from home to home, feeding the poor reptile milk and puffed rice. In return would they get money, eats and old clothes. Though rooted in cruelty to the poor beastie, it was a symbiotic relationship.
Hence the regret for the withering away of this folk festival that allowed young brides cooped up in household work to go out in the open, reach out to friends from the same age group, play on the swing, be the young girl she typically would be.
Well, the contexts have changed completely. Snakes slither now in the curio way only in the snake parks. With cities now encroaching the rural map, the huge anthills, supposedly a surefire serpent destination, are razed to ground. With cement concrete jungles everywhere, we can hardly see them as D.H.Lawrence described a snake at a waterhole. Yet the secret fascination tinged with huge fear remains. Never ever hence would the Nag Panchami be flattened out of our mindscape!
Pratima@Aai disliked snakes so much so that she would ask me to switch off the TV if the Discovery or the Animal Planet Channel showed any such programme. Why, even for a hearty laugh, never would she be ready to watch films that dealt with a she-cobra who could assume human form
So when Aai-Papa went to Battis Shirale where the traditional mode of Nag Panchami is still very much alive with real unfanged cobras, she hated it when Papa wore one such live cobra around his neck, which is a normal practice there, it seems.
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