The restless 28-year-old Neelim Kumar Khaire holds an odd world record. For seventy-two hours, he shared a glass cabin with some unusual company: twenty-seven monocellate cobras, twenty-four russell’s vipers, nine binocellate cobras, eight banded kraits, and four common snakes.
Khaire, a five-star hotel in Pune with a diploma in catering, works as a receptionist at Blue Diamond. He first developed a fascination with reptiles while working for the Maharashtra Tourism Department. He was assigned to oversee a vacation house in Matheran, close to Bombay, nine years ago.
According to Khaire: “Reptiles were frequent visitors at my place in Matheran. I hated killing such beautiful creatures – most of them were harmless. So I started catching and releasing them in the Sahyadri hills. I once caught a snake and took it to the Haffkin Institute in Bombay. I was told that it was poisonous and too risky to be carried in this way. The incident boosted my courage and so began my obsession with snakes.” His total to date – “25,000 catches, 6,000 bites.”
Khaire first considered setting a world record after reading about Peter Snyemaris’ incredible feat of spending 50 hours last year in Johannesburg, South Africa, with 18 venomous and 6 semi-poisonous snakes. Khaire has a small snake park in his backyard. “I thought an Indian deserved to create a world record in this field as India is known abroad as a country of snakes,” Khaire says.
However, many believed he had lost his mind when he started doing things on his own. He would not be taken seriously by the police, nor would they allow him to carry out his plans. Prospective donors continued to assure him that they would help.
Record: On January 20, he eventually made his way into a glass house cabin located at the B.J. Medical College sports ground in Pune. Khaire frequently had to deal with snakes climbing on top of him while he was resting in a chair. Khaire then had to stop the reptiles’ meanderings and return them to the ground.
By the end of the 72nd hour, Khaire had pretty much destroyed Snyemari’s record. Snyeman had to cope with a mere quarter of the snakes that he had to deal with. Khaire had received a letter from the Guinness Book of World Records publishers promising to set a world record even if he spent 30 minutes a day outside the cabin, but Khaire refused to comply. In the end, he scored 1,512 points compared to Snyemari’s 900.
Exhausted but unfazed by his ordeal, Khaire told waiting newsmen, “I stalled my parents’ efforts to get me married till I fulfilled my ambition of creating a work record. Now I am ready.” “I will now be able to set up a trust-run snakes park and a research centre with the initial funds from the proceeds of the feat.”
