As the coils wrapped around the animal squeeze ever tighter, so its vital force is sucked out, its eyes glazing over... It's the falling of a final curtain we see all too clearly in the image above, which shows a sand snake with a large rodent of some kind and about to swallow its prey. "One pair of eyes has [a] glitter of joy, the other [the] gloom of death. This is nature unplugged," says photographer, Chandan. We see what he means, yet this prey animal is small by comparison with those that are to follow...