Snake Charmer, Jaipur, India

In mid 2018 I spent two and a half months in India, which included a trip through Rajasthan on the way to New Delhi from the south. I spent a few days in Jodhpur, the blue city, and a couple of days in Jaipur. While there, I took a day trip to the Amber Fort, where out front a snake charmer was busking with his cobra.

When we're young, we develop ideas about things we discover second hand, don't we. We hang onto these ideas, according to what we've been taught or what our experience of something might have looked like, regardless of its accuracy. I always associated snake charming with hypnosis, something that I think is a fascination to many children. I'm not even trying to say that this is incorrect, the man with the horn certainly seemed to have the snake in a certain trance, as it stood, hovering, swaying slightly, transfixed on the sound.

In turn, are snakes capable of hypnosis? I saw a movie as a boy where someone, perhaps a child stumbled and fell in front of a cobra that was already on guard. The cobra seemed to gaze and sway in an attempt to en-trance its new 'prey.' Does anyone know the film I speak of?!

In terms of psychology, I've always associated hypnosis with the swinging of a pocket watch on a chain. I figure this is fairly common?! So this drawing takes a little from all of these thoughts about snake-charming and hypnosis. It's a crude drawing I know, but I like it.