The snake often emerges in Indian fiction as a multi-faceted symbol. Khushwant Singh seems to have made a tacit agreement in the use of serpent as a symbol in his short fiction – The Mark of Vishnu. Khushwant Singh weaves a story around the superstition and blind reverence towards the snakes. The servant Gunga Ram, though a Brahmin was illiterate and full of superstition. He believes in the trinity Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, - the creator, the preserver and the destroyer. He is the devotee of Vishnu. And therefore, he smears his forehead every morning with V mark sandalwood paste to honour Vishnu. To him all life was sacred even if it was of a serpent or scorpion or centipede. Daily he puts saucer full milk outside the hole near the wall and says: this is for Kala Nag. And by the morning finds the milk gone. The boys make fun of him, by saying that it is drunk by the cat. For, they are science students and know that the snakes don’t drink the milk and have also seen many i...
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