There is a legend about the great Chicago activist, Saul Alinsky to the effect that after repeated appeals to Mayor Richard Daley fell on deaf ears regarding conditions in some of the city’s poorer neighborhoods he hit upon a unique solution. He enlisted many of the residents of the afflicted neighborhoods, asking them to catch as many rats as they could. Said rats had to be kept alive. He then marched everyone down to City Hall where they released dozens of ghetto rats in what he called the “Share the Rats Program”.
In India, someone has gone the late Mr. Alinsky one better. A snake charmer, fed up with attempting to navigate a labyrinthine bureaucracy, released some forty snakes, including spitting cobras, in an Uttar Pradesh tax office.
Hakkul Khan said that he was seeking a plot of land on which to keep his reptiles.
Khan explained to reporters that he was forced to let the snakes loose because the government was seeking bribes in order to process his request.
“I am a conservationist and have been seeking the government’s help,” he said. “Having waited patiently for so long, I had no option but to leave all my snakes in this office.”
The forestry service was eventually able to recapture all of the snakes.
They are still looking for Khan however.
Here’s a video clip of the snake roundup:
Be seeing you.
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