Gurugram, Jan. 16 -- When a snake is sighted in a housing society or neighbourhood, people usually panic, they rush indoors, shut doors, a few people gather with sticks and a general sense of fear takes over. However, for 49-year-old Jyoti Raghavan, snake sightings are an ordinary part of her life. Raghavan moved to Malibu Town in Sector 47 in 2018. Since then, she has rescued hundreds of snakes across the city, earning a reputation as Gurugram's only woman snake rescuer. Her journey as a rescuer, she said, began nearly 15 years ago, while she was living in Dwarka, Delhi. According to Raghavan, one winter afternoon, she heard people shouting "snake" repeatedly in her society. "When I went to check, I saw a majestic cobra being beaten with sticks. It had taken shelter under a maze of plastic pipes," she said. "To be killed just for being a snake seemed extremely unjust to me." With no training or prior experience, Raghavan said she made a decision that changed her life. "I announced that I am going to rescue the cobra. And I actually succeeded," she said. She used a sack and a bamboo stick to guide the cobra inside and later released it safely in a forest. A similar incident unfolded years later after she shifted to Gurugram. This time, she said, it was a harmless wolf snake that had gotten tangled in a moss stick in her garden. Neighbours watched, anxious and unsure, but she stepped in and rescued the snake. "One thing led to another and rescues became a part of my life," she said. Over the years, Raghavan has rescued at least nine snakes, ranging from cobras, rat snakes to blind snakes and Russell's kukri. "On December 28, I rescued my first python and released in Mangar," she said. "The only challenge I face is from humans who see snakes as enemies and kill them at the first sight. Snakes are our balance keepers. If we lose them all, the rat population would increase manifold," she said. "I believe that this is a shared planet and animals have an equal right to it."...