Children from the city do not wait anymore for a snake charmer to bring a cobra to their doorstep on the Nag Panchami day. Instead, they make their own cobras to worship during the festival. This has been happening as a consequence of a concerted effort made by the volunteers of the Pune Snake Park towards educating children to avoid worship of live snakes. The campaign has borne fruits as the practice of worshipping live snakes has nearly stopped in the city. With the festival of snakes scheduled on July 23, awareness programmes are being conducted in the city’s schools where students are being informed about the importance of snakes in human life and are also taught to make models of cobra using clay. The workshop commenced by informing the students that the practice of worshipping live snakes during Nag Panchami celebrations is wrong and leads to either to their death or causes physical harm to the snakes. The children attending the workshop make clay models of cobras, also vowed to use them for puja on the Nag Panchami day.
Source: Sakaltimes, 20 July 2012, Internet edition.
