"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read." Luke 4:16

"And he said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath." Luke 6:5

"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour." St. John 12:26

I knew how difficult it was to get the appointment with the Police Commissioner who had previously successfully kept us at bay. Reluctantly I agreed to take part in the meeting and as our car was being overhauled, we went by bus to Bangalore to wait at the house of my in-laws till we were called for the appointment. We left our two sons at the factory. We intended to return in the evening with our two daughters who were then in Bangalore.

As we were waiting for the appointment we were told that the meeting had to be postponed from the morning to the afternoon. I did not mind that at all. That gave me a chance to attend the Sabbath service in church, which I did. After coming back from church I learnt that the appointment had been changed again to a later time. When that time approached we were informed that it was not possible to meet him at all that day. I was relieved not to have had the meeting on a Saturday.

On inquiring from Jaakko about the exact details of the event and what he felt at that moment, he said that his head, throat and one leg up to his thigh were paining. Our world then seemed darker than the night around us. We knew that we had not a moment to lose on what we had to do. We rushed up the factory stairs leading to our apartment and Jacob tried to contact the closest hospital, which was in the town of Mandya about half an hour away by car, by phone.

The telephone system in the area was obsolete and inefficient. There was no direct dialling facility, the telephone sets not even having dials. One had to pick up the receiver and wait for the operator to put the call through to the number one wanted. Normally a call to Bangalore could take about a day to materialise, while a call to any other major Indian town could take even up to a week, if at all. Calls to the neighbouring town of Mandya could be obtained in about half-an-hour.

The problem was different, however, this time. The telephone line was silent. The operator was not responding as he was probably asleep. Jacob desperately tried but there was no response. There was a telephone operator whom Jacob knew well. He knew that if he was able to contact him, he would use the various emergency lines to get in touch with the hospitals that we were trying to reach. He was frantically trying to wake up the operator.

After about twenty minutes the operator on duty answered. Jacob asked him to get the one we knew, Nanjundaiah, on the line. He then asked his friend Nanjundaiah to try and connect us through to the main hospital in Mandya. Try as he would he was not able to wake up the operator at the hospital switchboard. So Jacob asked him to try to contact any medical centre or nursing home. He got through to a private nursing home. Jacob explained the matter and he was told that they expected us to come there straightaway. They mentioned that there was no anti-venom available in the town of Mandya, the nearest places where it was available being Mysore or Bangalore. We did not think that Jaakko would be able to stand the stress of the two hour journey as he was getting paler by the minute.

Our next problem was how to get there. Our car was undergoing repairs and there was no way of getting there fast by any other means. No public transport was available at that time of the night. The Chief Executive of the company, Mr. Vishnu Vardhan was staying with us at that time. He went to a friend's home in Sommanahalli village some distance away and borrowed his jeep.

During this time we were filled in on exactly what events had taken place. Before anything else I wanted to know what snake it was that had bitten Jaakko and where it was. The snake was still alive trapped inside a inverted plastic waste paper basket in the watchman's gate room. I headed there straightaway, all the others following. I was told though that it was difficult to get to know what snake it was at close quarters as it was very much alive under the up-turned waste paper basket. Everyone warned me not to go near it. I was only too aware of the dangers but to get to know which type of snake it was meant taking the risk it entailed.

I was not afraid at the time. Only two weeks before that I had read an article in a health magazine at a friend's place about the most poisonous Indian snakes, their characteristics, living habits and how they are spread in the country, the way they bite and the effects of their bites on humans. The most venomous and dangerous one was said to be a small and thin snake called the russell viper. It was brown and had a clearly marked design on its back. Although small, it had concentrated poison of the strongest kind.

I was thinking about how to get hold of the snake that was trapped under the basket. I went towards the basket, excited pairs of eyes watching me. I lowered myself, held the basket and lifted one side a little. It was immediately followed by a loud hissing like the pressure being released from a pressure cooker. I put the side down but did not want to give up. I thought for a moment. I saw a newspaper, tore a small piece from it and went towards the basket again. I lifted up the basket in the same manner as before. For my luck the tail of the snake came out first, a thin brown tail. I quickly held it tight between my thumb and forefinger pulled it a little and pressed the body of the snake with the side of the basket. Slowly I kept pulling it from under the basket. I felt the snake resisting hard but I continued till I got to the neck. Then I pressed hard. My intention was not to crush the head because I wanted to take the snake with us to the hospital with the poison bag intact to determine how much of it was still left behind. At this juncture one of the watchmen decided to come to my assistance and crushed the head of the snake. I knew from the markings that the snake was a russell viper. I wrapped it in the newspaper to take it with us to the hospital.

Jaakko used to spend a lot of time in this room chatting with the watchmen and the factory workers. As he had been sitting with his feet under the table he had suddenly felt a sharp pain in his foot. He had immediately thought it was a scorpion as he had heard that a scorpion bite was very painful. He reacted very quickly to the pain and kicked his leg straight and saw the snake flying off his foot. The others trapped it because they knew that it was essential to know what snake had bitten him. It had bitten him between his toes. It was not possible to know how much poison had gone into his system.

A snake is not a rare sight there. In fact there are plenty of snakes of different types. There are local tribal people whose livelihood is to catch snakes. These people always carry the antidote against every kind of snake poison. The drug is supposedly a natural herbal product. The watchman had been quick to send someone to call the snake people to see Jaakko. The chief of the tribe had not been there and there was no one who could come to the factory. So Jaakko was taken to their place. As they did not know which snake had bitten him he was given a general herbal medicine as first aid. This is said to work temporarily against any snake bite, and it was said that it would keep him alive till the morning. They had expected the chief to return by then and when they knew which type of snake had bitten Jaakko they could give him the correct remedy. How much it was due to the effect of this herbal medicine that Jaakko is still alive we do not know!

Vishnu got the jeep and was ready to take us to the nursing home. It seemed a long drive with the cold night breeze sweeping through the open jeep windows. As we were going along the seemingly endless road, I asked Jaakko several times how he was feeling. He seemed relieved that we were there and that we were taking him to hospital. Finally we arrived in the small private nursing home and were met by a young student lady doctor. She quickly attended to Jaakko, cut open the wound and allowed some blood to run. She then cleaned the wound. She had informed the owner of nursing home, who was also the doctor-in-charge. He had been woken up from his sleep and was on his way to the nursing home to see Jaakko. In the meantime I showed the dead snake to the lady doctor. She confirmed that it was the snake that I had suspected it to be - a russell viper.

Soon the other doctor arrived, a cheerful-looking sturdy middle-aged man. He started treating Jaakko without delay. He gave five injections within half an hour, some antibiotics and a cortisone injection. He admitted Jaakko to stay overnight. He told the others to go home. I told the doctor that I would stay with Jaakko. He commented then that mothers were same everywhere.

We were shown to a room upstairs where Jaakko went to bed. He was trying to settle down to sleep but he was not feeling well. He was continuously yawning and trying to breathe in more air. I was silently praying for him as I watched him struggle for breath and try to fall asleep. Finally he fell asleep towards morning, sometime between three and four o'clock. I did not take my eyes off him. I was trying to relax, either sitting or lying down on the bed or kneeling down next to Jaakko's bed as he had already fallen asleep. I prayed for him as I had never done before.

There was a baby crying constantly in the next room and I had heard people moving about somewhere during the night. It was close to sunrise when I too fell asleep. Early morning Jaakko woke up, his usual cheerful self, feeling much better and ready for breakfast. The owner-doctor came to see Jaakko and checked him to look for any signs of trouble. He asked us to stay on till late afternoon so as to observe him for any after-effects.

Jacob had deputised one of the factory workers to come to the hospital to stay with us and to help us if there was anything that we needed. I sent him to buy something to eat for Jaakko and me from a nearby hotel. Jaakko got his favourite Indian breakfast, the masala dosa, a crisply fried pancake made out of ground rice and lentils and filled with a spicy onion and potato preparation.

We got to know later that a baby had died in the nursing home. Death had certainly visited the nursing home that night. It was sad.

Somehow the day passed. Jaakko was cheerful and we were just waiting to go home. It was around 5 o'clock in the evening that we left the place. We walked to the main road and waited for some form of public transport. There were several different types and we were looking for the first one which would carry us back to the factory. There was a local mini-bus service. We got into the first mini-bus that stopped for us. It was crowded, full of local villagers going home. The roof of the bus was so low that we could not stand up straight. Nothing bothered us. We were just happy to be on our way home.

I did not usually travel in buses and it was the first time I had got into one of this type. It added to my experiences. The children were quite used to taking the buses when going to school in Bangalore. They alternated their travel between our car and the buses. Sometimes they used the open three-wheeler taxis which were quick, easy to get hold of and cheap.

It was wonderful to be back at home. Everyone was excitedly waiting to see Jaakko. More than anything they were happy to see that he had survived the snake bite and appeared to be in good spirits. How much it affected Jaakko's life, who was then 14, only he can tell. As for us, his parents, it was an incident that reminded us of the fragility of life and its preciousness. I was thankful to God above anything else for saving Jaakko's life in His wondrous way. It was a wonder that he was alive at all. Some people are known to have died from the bite of a non-poisonous snake, probably out of sheer fright.

It seemed as if our family was a special target for attacks from the unseen enemy. It was as though there had been a terrific battle of unseen forces going on at the time Jaakko was attacked.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" I Peter 5:8

It was in a fraction of a moment that his helpers were present preventing the success of the 'enemy'.

"The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them." Psalm 34:7

The most crucial moment had passed at that moment when his life was saved and not destroyed, but the battle continued in those following hours that we went through.

Susanna had come to spend the weekend with us as she had an extra school holiday. It was a shattering time for her from the moment of arrival at the Sommanahalli factory gate. She preferred to be in Bangalore where she could spend her free time with her friends and her hobbies and rarely wanted to spend time in the countryside. This incident probably drove her further away from life in the countryside.