Kings built
fortresses to protect and safe guard their kingdoms and its citizenry from
enemies. Moats, draw bridges and heavy
front doors unbreakable even by a battalion of elephants were the precautions
in the same direction.
Today these
fortresses of yesteryear are delegated to the tired tourists after heavy
shopping pretending to listen to seemingly enthusiastic guide who must be
equally tired after the thousands of repetitions of the same story unless he
weaves a new one to add a zing to this every day routine!
The innate desire and the inbuilt genes to
protect and guard the property runs through us also if not to the extent of the
royalty. We create umpteen number of gates and doors buy the best of locks
including the world renowned ‘Dindugal’ multi levered ones to secure our
houses. The process of quality checking of these contraptions against the
illusory enemies happens day in and day out. The computerised locking system is
the latest addition.
But this brand of
fortification takes a different avatar in my house. We don't bother much about
our locking system since anyone who enters the house would just find treasure
trove in the form of books whose ultimate value in the weighing system of the
old paper man might be a measly amount and for the greedy burglar it might be a
disappointing endeavour where his love's labour is lost!!
While we might be
bit relaxed about our locking-system we are very meticulous about another
defence where the quality checking starts in right earnest around the month of
October for any given year. It is
against an enemy who doesn't want usurp our kingdom but rather wants to be part
of us, to live with us and like a calculative and cunning financier strike at
the right moment at the very core! Yes
it is the blood crazy winged insects, the modern day Draculas’, our beloved
mosquitoes who begin to proliferate as the rainy season starts in Chennai.
For us this season
is indeed a double whammy. Apart from the multiplication in mosquitoes the city
of Chennai turns into the cultural centre of the world with its grand sessions
of music and dance and the foreigners who pay through the nose to travel here
for this convergence also multiply like mosquitoes!
Our house too dons
the festive mood during this time as people land here with great enthusiasm to
enjoy the show and the warmth of the place. While protecting ourselves from
mosquitoes is just one part, safe guarding our foreign friends from them is a
very intricate part. Like the Indian mentality of "craziness about anything
foreign "our very own Indian mosquitoes never want to lag behind in our
idiosyncrasies. When the foreigners arrive home, they become indifferent to the
desi blood and avariciously fall for the foreign one, a supposedly greener
pasture!!
And that is the main
reason why we start our quality check of our mosquito-netting in right earnest!
Our house being an old construction when people believed in an airy dwellings
the doors and windows abound. As if this
wasn't enough for the inflow of oxygen there are ventilators high above the
windows. The toilets with Venetian blinds and exhaust fans are the vulnerable
ones too.
The whole set of
nets are brought down checked for wear and tear meticulously
Promptly a word
file is created aptly named 'Mosquito Menace' and kept handy on the desk top
and ticked off as and when the repair or replacement takes place.
As my paradesi
friends arrived, I announced my commandments with all seriousness of the grand
old man Moses with his ten commandments.
Keep your room door shut all the time
Keep off the mosquitoes
Keep the bath room door shut all the time
Keep off the mosquitoes
Keep your room door shut all the time
Keep off the mosquitoes
Keep the bath room door shut all the time
Keep your room door shut all the time
Keep off the mosquitoes
Keep the bath room door shut all the time
Keep off the mosquitoes
This precious
mantra is repeated till it touches the right cord!
But what can I do
when these people starving through their lives in the 'cold sun' love to go in
full swing for a sun bathe in the terrace and appease their 'heat' hunger and
in the process invite our mosquitoes with open hands for a grand feast?!
And the house which
becomes busy during this period the opening and closing of various netted doors
become imperative and the mosquitoes waiting for the right opportune glide in
gracefully.
It is then that my
house turns onto a shuttlecock court (of course with entirely different rules)
when bats, local and foreign (very effective!!) are brought out and we could
witness very many persons jumping around and smashing with maximum speed as the
mosquitoes act as elusive and invisible shuttlecocks. The proof of the job
being done was the crackling sound from the mosquitoes emanating from the bat
and the victorious cry " I caught it ...I got it." If some intruding individual is caught in
the process a similar ear-piercing scream is a sure thing!
Despite all these
preventative measures, one among our friends was severely bitten and the
redness and the bulges and spurs on various parts of her body was the proof of
the pudding. The bites were so severe that they were oozing out at some points.
On that fine morning,
I saw her sitting in the hall wearing a coloured bangle similar to the
friendship bands the youngsters wore in dozens! She took the clue from my
surprised look and whimpered " Yea this is also an additional precaution
against mosquitoes." And the tea
table in front of her was laid with various lotion and sprays! Apart from our
own Odomos Morteins All Out and the Fab India and Himalaya herbals and were
accompanied by foreign assortments of repellents.
She complained
"I don't know how they enter my room even though I make sure that my door
is always closed the gadgets work day in and day out." she was pathetic
indeed. Then I thought there must be minuscule space between the door and the
floor and started pondering how best this gap could be arrested.
All of a sudden, an
idea struck me. During the dance programmes season at the prestigious
Kalashektra of Chennai, the team in charge had a ploy for chasing away the
mosquitoes from the aesthetically decorated open theatre. Mud pots filled with
coal fire were set in various places. Indian neem leaves along with the Chinese
chaste tree leaves (nochi in Tamil) were added to the fire creating an aroma
and smoke to which the mosquitoes were averse to. Like the chariot festival of Mylapore these
pots are taken around the rows of seating in a procession and with the misty
smoke in place a full sleeve tops or a thick silk sari as a cover for the upper
part too one is sure to enjoy those superior and worthy shows in peace.
Thiruvanmiyur
market's vicinity provided me the needed pots and the Chinese chaste tree
leaves were collected from the next street. There was no dearth of neem leaves
as my house is surrounded by these friendly trees. The needed coal was provided
by the iron man aka our street dhobi. Thus equipped, my house was in its
incensed glory by the evening and as a further precaution against the minuscule holes I left incense pots each in front of various rooms.
Next day morning my
shocked and incensed, husband was raging and fuming. "What sort of silly idea
got into your head? You could have set the whole house on fire. What if some
stupid person tripped over the pot in darkness? What if a rat or a cat turned
turtle over the pot? A little spark is enough to set a disaster show."
Guilt ridden over
my moronic and dangerous idea, I hung my head down in shame!
Every show must end
with a climax and my mosquito chapter is not the one to lag behind!
We usually land as a gang on the sabhas of
Mylapore for all the programmes after a sumptuous tiffin and coffee at the
world famous Karpagammal mess. Thus satiated, the shows became the crowning
glory for the day
Usually as we walk out of the theatre after
the show, we could overhear comments from the connoisseurs of the art which are
as worthy as that of a great critique. But on that day it was indeed a very
different ball game when an old Mylaporean was not in a mood for the
customary and routine thing of the best and worst of the programme. The lady
was chatting with her companion thus. "Usually the foreigners who attend
the programmes emanate nice fragrance of perfumes and I enjoy the smell but of
late I am scared to pass near them. They smell of our nasty odomos."
Coming back home I
shared this with the gang with great merriment.
Should we blame our
mosquitoes as the root cause of this evil comment?
Should we blame the
inventor of the smelly odomos?
Should we blame our
dear friends who believe in a generous splurging of multifarious liquids and
sprays whenever they start out of the house?
We had a hell of a
laugh over this critical surveillance a cultural paradigm shift worthy of a
great research paper!!
