I've always wondered why Eve didn't run for her life when the snake made its presence known to her. I, for one, did an about turn after I made an eye to eye contact with a long brown snake just as I entered my garden. The snake slithered off under a nearby bush and I ran towards the house screaming like a hysterical banshee.

By the time my helpers came running, the snake had moved off from the bush to another hiding place. I couldn't believe there had been a snake living in our garden all this while. The whole place had become a mini jungle and there was adequate reason for us to go on a snake safari with waist high grass growing all around the 600sq feet ground and trees with branches that nearly touched the ground.

We used to trample through the place looking for ripened fruits, lemons and grass for the rabbits. Our blissful ignorance of another silent presence living amongst us came to a halt yesterday when I had the villagers clean up the garden. I was ruthless in my instructions, they cut down the shady branches, the thick bushes, skinned the banana tree and covered all holes with mud except one that lay unnoticed behind a flowering bush and that was exactly where the snake went into and stayed unnoticed for over ten minutes.

Nityu, our helper poked the bushes and strolled around the garden. My maid and I stayed back with my year old daughter. There was no place for the snake to hide, where could it go? But then when it was pointed out with its head sticking out of the hole I kind of felt bad for it. I wondered as to who was more scared me or the snake?

But that’s where my empathy with the reptile ended. I wanted it out of my garden. Nityu, a religious Bengali, begged me to leave it alone.

"The snake is a good sign bhabi, it will bring luck to the house. It’s all in Vastu" he said. He begged in his gentle voice but I was adamant the snake had to go.

Garden snake or no garden snake, the damn reptile was longer than my arm and made me uncomfortable.

I sent a word out to a villager who had arranged for men to clean my garden. As we waited for the cavalry to arrive, the snake burrowed inside the hole. One worker guarded the hole in case the snake came out and the other fretted near the gate, the kids and I in the meantime had our lunch in a hurry since we didn’t want to miss the action.

When the cavalry did arrive I was surprised to a see a whole gang of loud villagers pour through my gate. I wanted the four guys who had previously cleaned up the place to flush the snake out, not the whole village but seeing their excited faces and since they were my neighbors I held my tongue.

Between all the loud noisy conversation and digging, the only thing I managed to glean was that they meant to wrap the snake around a stick and take it. Take it where I didn't know but one thing was for sure they were not going to kill it since they considered snakes to be holy.

Again I held my peace, it wouldn't have made sense to say- 'hey my garden, my snake and I want the damn thing killed.' They obviously would have thought me to be loco.

So, from a corner I watched the action. They overturned a few big rocks, dug deep but there was no snake to be found instead there were passages in the ground that ran deep in various directions.

The villagers looked at me and shrugged. The snake could be anywhere they said and since it was a harmless one they weren't too concerned.

One by one they filtered out and I was left standing there bemused.

If I was in the city and my neighbors found out there was a snake in the vicinity they wouldn't have been so relaxed. As it is there is a snake swimming in one of my neighbor's water tank for the past three days and they left it there since they don't want to kill it for religious reasons.

I hemmed and hawed for a while. I didn't want to let my kids to play in the garden, get solar lights for the garden, get some borax and all the stuff that kept snakes out.

Yet, despite all my fretting the garden beckoned me. I had bought some plants in the morning and they needed to be planted. The snake was there some where but work still needed to be done.

I went back into the garage grabbed my gardening tools, the plants and the watering can.

As I planted the young saplings I stared at the big yawning hole where the snake had lived for so many months and felt sad as my irrational fear would not let me live a symbiotic relationship with the garden snake.

The snake was not welcome in my paradise.