Kistu is a legend in Goa. Perhaps a little forgotten today, but 10 years ago, I remember even my school teachers used to talk about him in class with awe. Friends used to tell me that he escaped from the Aguada prison, with shackles on his feet. The jailers, they said, had pierced metal through his shins, (like a ring through a bull’s nose) to keep the chains on him.

Equally famous he was for living a life like a guerrilla. People said that he roamed jungles at night and not only caught, but fed on snakes as well. My interest for reptiles is inborn so it was but natural that as I grew up I began to dream of meeting him someday.

Then I started catching snakes, and found that people were making up stories about me as well. That I could drink snake poison without suffering any ill effects - in case you need to know, so can you, because snake poison is only lethal in contact with blood. Or that I used mantras and so on. I began to realise for the first time that maybe all those stories about Kistu just might not be true. My desire to meet Kistu grew even stronger

With the help of friends in Thivim I finally work out an appointment to meet Kistu. Seven in the evening and I find myself standing expectantly at his door. Kistu comes out in shorts looking even better than I expect him to be! His body is rippling with muscles that would make guys half his age green with envy. On broad shoulders stands an amiable head, crowned with bushy, platinum streaked hair, which merges below into a rich luxuriant beard.

My heart is racing after all those stories I have heard of him, but Kistu smiles warmly and shakes my hand reassuring me. As we talk, I fire my questions at him, dying to know the answers these many years.

‘Do you eat snakes?’ I ask him. Kistu seems a little taken a back by this question.

‘Of course not,’ he replies, amused.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I tell him nervously, ‘but I am going to keep asking the most ridiculous questions I can come up with.’

‘Fair enough,’ he replies. ‘It’s time people knew the truth.’

Turns out Kistu started catching snakes since he was ten. He lived all his life in Thivim, working mostly as a fisherman, catching the odd snake in the village when it troubled someone.

‘But why in God’s name are you so notorious?’ I ask him, my curiosity finally getting the better of me.

There is a moment of silence when Kistu considers me hesitantly, then he smiles back into his beard and says: ‘I was involved in a murder case years back, but hell I won it, and that’s that.’

 I drop that subject.

I steal a glance at his shins though – his legs look as normal as mine.

As I continue absorbing his features, I cannot help but notice how closely he resembles John Little from Robin Hood. I mention it to him and he laughs.

Yeah sure I’ve seen Robin Hood, he says. Then he rattles on, the conversation apparently swung on to his favourite subject – movies!. You won’t believe it, but he has seen almost all the Bond movies. Golden Gun, Live and Let Die, Thunderball, Skyrider Man and others like Enter the Dragon, Three Musketeers, to name a few.

Kistu is 49, married and has three sons. He neither drinks nor smokes and by all counts could be just another ordinary nice guy. So where do I place these stories I have heard about the legendary Kistu? Are they false? Who knows – maybe true, maybe not. Kistu certainly did things like catching snakes which were not regular stuff either in his day or even today. As I leave his house I realise that people are always desperate for heroes to dream about, talk about, even be frightened of. If you are even a little out of the ordinary it’s easy for tall stories to grow around you which, embellished over time, can truly make you appear larger than life.