To catch a snake

Naya Raipur, the newly built capital of Chhattisgarh, currently only has the Mantralaya (secretariat) functioning. Here too, there are still many gaps to fill, none more urgent than the one a staff member of Manoj Kumar Pingau, who is, ironically, secretary for general administration, discovered recently. This was the presence of a snake in his boss’ washroom. Though the staffer raised the alarm, security personnel were helpless. The Mantralaya has state-of-the-art security systems but they were all useless for dealing with a visitor of a reptilian nature. Eventually, the secretariat fell back on the traditional method of evicting the snake through the simple expedient of hiring the services of a snake-catcher from a nearby village.