Death from below.

     I was making coffee and very much looking forward to my last Rosetta Stone Hindi lesson for Unit 1 when I heard Amit's voice just outside the front door. He knocked and my heart sank a little. It's not that I didn't enjoy his company every now and then. I just preferred advanced warning.

     We went to sit in the hall. He looked a little more serious than usual. He broke the news very matter-of-factly. One of his very good friends had died yesterday. He had been bitten by the 'wife' of a King Cobra while working in the paddy fields, not far from the same nursery that was chronically short on ivy creepers. He died there, alone, maybe two hours later. The tourniquet wrapped around his leg suggested he had known it was a snake bite. But the fact that he had chosen to continue working (there was no one around to prove that working theory) suggested he hadn't take it seriously enough. A quick call for an ambulance and this 28-year-old would still be alive. 

     Details were sparse and Amit didn't seem too interested in getting to the bottom of things. He barely spoke as he sat on the chair cross-legged, playing drums on his ankles. The silence was uncomfortable. How to console someone I barely knew? He asked me for plain hot water. When I brought him the cup he took a sip, sighed and insisted it felt like he was drinking chai. He brought the hot cup up to his face as if to relieve a headache. I thought he was going to cry. Instead he asked me if his eyes were red. I noticed only then that his hair was uncombed. I suggested that if anything would happen to any of my good friends I'd be absolutely devastated. The words sounded empty as they left my mouth. Amit just stared blankly at the collage behind me. More silence followed. 

     Finally he asked me which three of the maybe dozens of smiling little girls I found the prettiest - to have as my own daughters, I presumed. I answered. Then which boy had the biggest eyes. Then which looked the most Nigerian and then the most Jamaican. I was even more uncomfortable with the random hypotheticals than I was sitting in silence. In my head I considered my initial reaction to the 'organized' trek into the South Goan forests in search of the great King Cobra. It had sounded interesting at the time - an adventure in a state sorely lacking in anything of the sort. Not so much anymore. 

     I asked Amit if he was okay. He wiggled his head a little and rubbed his eyes with his hands. I still wasn't sure if that meant yes or no.