Parents Gave Their Baby A Snake To Play With Since They Can't Afford Toys

It's a sight to make most parents go cold with fear - a six-month-old girl playing with a python.

But Sidhi Siddharth Sinune who isn't even old enough to walk, never mind run away from the reptile, treats it as a plaything.

This is because it was given to her by her farmer father who earns extra cash as a snake catcher.

He brings home his prey for his daughter to play with because he says he is too poor to afford toys.

'Sidhi has an unusual bonding with the snakes and surprisingly they too like to play with her,' said Siddharth Sinune.

'Being a poor farmer, I can't buy her costly toys but I can get her snakes to play with.'

So while he and his wife are working in nearby fields in a rural part of south-west India the youngster pats the powerful snake which is capable of killing her by constriction in an instant.

In one image she squeezes its scales with her little hands in another she chews on its tail with her gums. Shrieking with delight she lets it weave through her legs.

Although not venomous, pythons are constrictors that kill by constriction, or by swallowing their prey whole.

After catching snakes which stray into the fields close to the village in the state of Maharashtra Sidhi's father releases them back to the surrounding forests.