For farmers working in paddy fields or among overgrown plants, the snakes are easy to step on or disturb. Sluggish to the point of immobility, they inch their way through the grass, their green and brown camouflage making them almost invisible in daylight. Much of the reason for this is how they hunt. The Russell's viper is estimated to be responsible for as many as 43% of snake bites in India and is responsible for 30-40% of snake bites in Sri Lanka. Yet they account for more bites and deaths in India than any other species of snake. They mainly hunt rodents or small frogs that scurry into their path in the fields where they forage – these snakes are not interested in humans. These snakes are mainly active during the night and are masterful ambush predators, remaining motionless for long periods before striking ferociously at their prey. This is the perfect habitat for the Russell's viper, a large, earth-coloured and highly venomous snake found across much of India and other parts of South Asia.

But lurking in the thick undergrowth is something more worrisome than leaking water pipes.

Like many farm workers in rural India, Rao and his neighbours tend to get around barefoot. Sometimes if the water pipes are disjointed, we walk alongside the water pipe, feeling with our hands to fix it.'

'We have to walk out in the midst of those at night to turn on the water pump for the field. 'In the monsoon, the fields are overgrown with weeds,' says Tukaram Rao, a farm labourer from the village of Rathnapuri in Karnataka, south-west India.

Shall I Take a Bite? by Drewscape