FAISALABAD, Dec 29: “If you don’t love cobra, no girl will be ready to marry you.”

This is what has been going on in snake charmer families for centuries, according to Pir Bukhsh, a snake charmer.

While putting a handful currency notes in his pocket, which he was showered from a crowd after a snake show on Sidhupura Road, Pir Bukhsh turned to me to answer my queries.

“A boy earning Rs50,000 monthly through other means will remain unmarried and scores of examples are available in our families,” said the deft snake charmer. He said such a condition, imposed by saints on their families, had helped them keep snake charming alive.

Most of the snake-charming families are nomads who live in makeshift tents in different cities.

Even though such families reject modern-day occupations, they are open to modern luxuries such as TV cable, electricity, wireless and cell phones.

However, schooling is a taboo for them.

Bukhsh says they do not like sending their children to schools because “sending children to schools and spending on their education is a futile exercise”.

“We only train our children to handle snakes and that how to beg with snake. We teach them how to entice spectators.”

The snake is considered a precious gift in such families and a girl having cobra as dowry is considered a lucky bride.

Even though he is not aware of the National Geographic Channel, Bukhsh knows a lot about snakes and their habits. He says his mentor taught him how to identify and catch a snake.

When asked how he catches a snake, Bukhsh says he chases the reptile through its trails. He says every snake leaves a specific trail on the ground as some moves in right direction and a few in left. He said Sargodha and Chiniot were nearby snake haunting areas.

The charmer also knows how to make a snake active. He also demonstrated his skill at his roadside show. First he hit its head with a stick but the serpent did not move. Later, he poked a match stick into his tail and the helpless reptile started moving visibly writhing around on the ground. And his trick ended up in thundering applause from the spectators.

The venomous serpent is helpless to avenge the cruelty at the hand of its master. "We remove the fangs of snakes to make them unharmed,” says the master charmer.

About the diet of snakes, he said he fed his pet with milk and meat. He said meat gave strength to snakes and made them active, charming and shining. During roadside shows, charmers carry the cobra in a basket made of date leaves. According to Bukhsh, the basket is very useful in summer season as it saves the snakes from heat.

Bukhsh earns up to Rs500 from one roadside show.

At the show, he also offers his magical pills which can cure infertility in women and impotence in men.

“Only a snake charmer can offer such magic pills because their formula requires some parts of snakes,” says the ‘doctor’ charmer.