It is a twisted, mangled tree on the narrow platforms of the Polliredipalem railway station, a dusty village station on the mainline that swings across the country from the north to the south of India. It was part of a bewitching story that is forgotten.

On its branches were many strips of cloth. Each one is a reminder of a life saved by the man who tied it there. Pammula Narsayya was the station master. He was unlike most of the others who manned the thousands of tiny, non-descript stations in India. He had a gift that saved lives.

It is a story with very few mentions in records and one that sounds more like folklore than a recorded narrative. It was said that if someone was bitten by a poisonous snake, a telegram was to be sent to the station. On receiving it, Narsayya would walk over to the tree, tear a piece out of his dress, and tie it to the tree while chanting a mantra. It has been widely reported that the patient would recover and be up and about in a few hours. The snake would, as per the stories, not survive. Some references are made to the treatment being done in response to phone calls and to the station, which was in those days the only place for phones. He is credited with treating many patients while he was working. He retired from the railways in the early 1960s.

It is said that Narsayya learned the mantra from a saint who had identified him as gifted and taught him the Garuda mantra (Garuda, in Hindu mythology, is a divine eagle-like bird who is the enemy of all serpents). Narsayya, it is said, once cured a high-ranking British Railway official who was bitten by a snake. The official gave him a job in the railways and instructed the nearest telegraph centre to open a hotline that would deliver telegrams from snake bite victims’ to the wizened station master for him to work the miracle.

It might sound right out of the minds of a fictional writer, but then there are references that give this incredible story a partial acknowledgement. The most striking of these references probably come from Kenneth Anderson, the famous wildlife personality who is a legend in his own right..

Anderson , one of India’s foremost game hunters, was based in Ooty , a quaint hill station in the Nilgiris range in Tamil Nadu. He makes a striking reference to this mystery in one of his books. Recounting the story Anderson talks of a routine day when he was bitten by a Cobra he was handling in his farm. He immediately rushed to the nearest medical outpost to get the antidote. The first one he visits has no stock and it forces him to drive further in search of the life saving antidote. Anderson drives with worsening symtpoms, to the second health center and luckily finds the antidote and get himself jabbed.

When he returns to his house, he is told by one of his staff that they had sent the telegram to the snake-man Narsayya, which he responds to rather skeptically. The surprise in the story is when he goes on to have a look at the cobra that had bitten him. To his surprise, he finds the snake not only dead but stiffened in rigor mortis. While he is unsure of what cured him, he does refer to the fact that a snake takes more than a day to end up with rigor mortis, while the one that had bitten him had stiffened in a matter of hours. It is probably the closest one can get to a confirmation of Narsayya’s abilities.

It is a story lost in the mists of the past and with very few references , it might be one lost to time. It sounds crazy , but then the references, however few there are do give it a mystical colour.

A story that might sound like fantasy, but if even one man is saved, it is worthwhile.

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