people search for fish in ponds but rokkam kiran kumar searched for snakes during his childhood now he looks for snakes in houses he carries no snake tongs with him and grabs the poisonous reptile with his bare hands he doesnt carry a vial of antivenom the 32yearold has thus far caught nearly 13000 snakes in visakhapatnam popular as snake kiran he attends to five calls a day from panichit people he shares his experiences with v kamalakara rao of toi while catching snakes q why did you select catching snakes as a profession a i love snakes and save them tears roll down my cheeks if i see anything bad happening to a snake the first snake that i caught was a cobra which created havoc at a sweet shop at malkapuram i was studying in class ix then people laughed at me when i said i could catch the snake but they showered praises when i completed the task with my bare hands since then i have been catching the snakes q what is the secret behind your art a bravery and scientific technique is required to handle a snake this bravery is a gods gift to me i dont say that i am an exceptional person i try to catch snakes with two things in mind there should be no harm to me or the reptile q how many snakes did you catch so far a i have caught nearly 13000 snakes of all varieties including cobra krait and viper in residential localities like vizag steel plant township parawada dockyard madhurawada kancharapalem seethammadhara mvp colony aphb colony gajuwaka gopalapatnam pendurty and vepagunta i even caught snakes in the houses of former vizag steel plant cmd ap choudary former steel plant director personnel yr reddy and other senior officials q why are snakes rampant in the city a snakes are rampant in vizag because the city has become a concrete jungle due to urbanization people trespass into hilly areas and snakes are forced to come to the city people are destroying their natural habitat the forest cover some snakes even come to the city in vegetable baskets in trucks that come from rural areas q do you think snakes are useful to human society a snakes are very useful to people particularly farmers a snake protects food grains from rodents in agricultural fields thus helping farmers however snakes are not much useful to people in cities they are more a risk in urban areas q any awards or records so far a my name was included into the limca book of records india book of world records and ek veera award then collector lav agarwal rewarded me for catching snakes with bare hands on the eve of republic day in 2012 q which snakes are most dangerous a cobra krait and viper are dangerous there is hardly any chance of survival after a cobra bites a person krait or viper bites also cause death cobra russells