Jose, according to Ashok Kumar, cofounder and Chairman of the Wildlife Trust of India, was born ‘ to swing between trees, Tarzan-like with a knife clenched between his teeth and not to do paper work in offices’. As the Head of my Trade Control projects, he has swung criminal to criminal, trapping them, hounding them and catching them. He should thus be called Crime Buster Jose. He came to us however from a bear background and perhaps once he was a Bear man Jose. His educational qualifications are in information technology, so he could in Kerala be called Software Jose. But this trip to the Nilgiris brought out two other facets of Jose Louies.

Jose photographing the Malabar pit viper, yellow morph
Photo: Vivek Menon / WTI

First, one that I did not know. He keeps bees. He is a self-taught apiculturist and the bee boxes at his house are handmade in his spare time. His three year old son has been stung by bees when he tried to extract honey from the hive on his own. And Jose himself is at peace on mornings that he is home, by having his morning cuppa facing the bee box and listening to the bees-about-work. The way he described it to me, it sounds like his personal nirvana.

Jose photographing regenration of bamboo, Wayanad WLS
Photo: Vivek Menon / WTI

I always knew that he is passionate about snakes. He runs the ever popular website Indian Snakes and on two trips with him he has shown me five species of snakes. Okay four species with two colour morphs, but whatever. But to me, what was most revealing was the way he was advising long distance, a snake bite victim on which hospital to go to, phoning the hospital and arranging anti-venom, all the while wrongly assuring the victim that the snake was non venomous while telling the hospital that it was a krait. He had identified the snake by asking the victim and his friends to photograph the snake with a phone camera and share it on whatsapp. In telling the hospital, the correct id, he ensured the anti-venom was available in time. In fooling the patient, he lowered his heart rate and probable saved his life.

The yellow morph of the Malabar pit viper the duo came across on their excursion
Photo: Vivek Menon / WTI

I remembered the day twenty five years ago at Point Calimere when I did something similar when a villager was bitten by a saw scaled viper. They were common, asleep on the bunds to Mariappan’s hotel and sure enough one day a cowherd was bitten. He had to be taken to Nagapattinam but as a placebo I offered him a paracetomol (the only drug I had on me). His faith in the English speaking wildlife expert meant that he thought he would be all right. It slowed his heart rate and allowed the ligature to work. Both combined, it kept him in shape till he got to a centre that had anti-venom. But that was in situ. This was long distance for the victim was in Gujarat. All in the course of a day’s work for Snake Jose.

In Malayalam being called a pambu would be derogatory for it is used for the alcoholic who slithers back from his nightly rendezvous, but for those who know Malayalam, Jose’s Twitter name is revelatory. Jose Thanni. Thanni, literally water but a euphemism for alcohol in his local lingo.

The Bandipur anti poaching comrades, Jose, Sudhir, Rajkumar and Nagaraj Bhatt.
Photo: Vivek Menon / WTI