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Wildbuzz | The jeweller’s eye
Last week’s exhibition staged by the Photo Artist Group at the Alliance Française to mark world tourism day showcased a variety of finely executed photographs from across the world over by 13 photo artists – all non-commercial and non-professional hobbyists
Entrancing photographs of landscapes and wildlife from tourist hotspots go a long way in tempting more to travel. The charm is enhanced when the accomplished photographers hail from diverse and intriguing backgrounds: a leading jeweller, a sedate banker, measured bureaucrats from the Class I central services and the CAG’s office, a public health specialist et al.
Last week’s exhibition staged by the Photo Artist Group at the Alliance Française to mark world tourism day showcased a variety of finely executed photographs from across the world over by 13 photo artists – all non-commercial and non-professional hobbyists. The images were not only visually charming, but some works engaged the mind with their embedded symbolism.
Among them, one photograph was of the Kailash Manasarovar in Tibet, an image from the freezing high-altitudes of this pilgrimage destination revered by multiple religions. The photograph captured the mountainscape with an ethereal touch, reminiscent of the peerless paintings of the sagely Himalayas by the Russian nobleman and explorer, the late Nicholas Roerich. The photographer was Neeraj Jain, a leading Chandigarh jeweller of the JJ Nikkamal Babu Ram outlet in Sector 22, who regularly downs the shutters on diamonds and gold to travel afar, and photograph exotic landscapes and flowers in the fullness of bloom.
“We reached Mansarovar in May-end to find ice sheets floating in the lake. It was so freezing and windy that it was difficult to hold the camera steady. Our group went in for a ‘havan’ on the banks of the lake but the sun broke through and I found the light perfect for photography. I abandoned the havan and took photographs, despite some raised eyebrows among group members! I am glad I did so because I was blessed with memorable images,” Jain told this writer.
Snakebite death?
Mystery shrouds the tragic death of 47-year-old Harmeet Kaur, a mother of two employed with ICICI Bank’s audit department, during the wee hours of September 29. Though widely suspected to be a bite from either a cobra or a krait, the offending serpent was neither seen by the family members, who were very close by nor has it been traced after two days of search through the intensely cluttered living space of the family residing in an EWS flat in Chandigarh’s Sector 42.
The flat’s living spaces and kitchen were swarming with rats, a preferred prey of serpents, which abound in the residential area due to an adjoining jungle strip. The woman’s body showed a lone puncture mark on the toe of the left foot. No post-mortem was carried out on the body.
Just 15-20 days back, a snake had appeared outside their house and it was killed. That had given rise to the mythical belief that the snake’s mate would take revenge on the family.
“I came back from late night duty and my mother went to the kitchen to arrange food for me. It was about 12.25 am. She was bitten as she stepped down from the living room into the kitchen. We initially thought it was a rat bite, and my father (Harjeet Singh) washed the wound with antiseptic. But my mother’s condition did not improve. She complained of aches all over, vomited and was suffering from abnormal body movements conveying acute distress. We then thought it could be a snakebite, as a snake was spotted and killed outside our house 15-20 days back, my father tied a tourniquet with his ‘thatha’ (beard band) to prevent venom from spreading. But my mother grew uncomfortable with the tourniquet and had it removed. We then rushed her to the hospital within 10 minutes of the bite. But she died within 30-35 minutes of being bitten. We suspect, and the doctors also told us, that she suffered a heart attack. She was a diabetic,” the woman’s daughter, Ramandeep Kaur, told this writer.
The symptoms displayed by Kaur do not match the typical ones arising from a cobra or krait neurotoxic bite such as breathlessness, vision impairment, throat constriction, and stomach pain. Venomous bites take time for the symptoms to manifest and mortality is typically not so swift, unless the patient suffers severe shock or trauma.
“The woman was bitten by a rat or a snake. We cannot say which one. What does appear to be the case is that the woman suffered intense shock at being bitten by what she believed was a snake. In such cases, a cardiac arrest is possible even though it actually was a rat bite. Or, if actually a snakebite, the cardiac arrest due to shock at being bitten causes speedy death even though the venom has not had time to entrench and inflict mortality. The other possibility is that – if a snakebite – the untying of the tourniquet may have caused venom to spread very quickly with the rush of released blood from her foot,” Kedar Bhide, an eminent researcher who has worked on snakebite mitigation at grassroots dispensaries with the governments of Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, told this writer.
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