In many profession you can afford to be 99.99% accurate, leaving 0.01% scope for error due to various unpreventable attributes. But you must be 100% accurate in the mission of mosquito eradication in your room if you want a sound sleep. No scope for error, failure is simply not an option.
I took a valiant attempt at cleansing my room of these obnoxious blood suckers. I burnt an entire coil of KACHHUA (Tortoise) brand repellent to smoke the mosquitoes out of their hideouts. Whatever I came across I mercilessly clapped them to death in my own hands. Then I put an ALL OUT, another brand repellent. I was confident that I vanquished all of those parasites.
Or so I thought. As soon as I felt asleep came the annoying humming sound buzzing around my ear. I followed with the reflex action of trying to smash it, using one and occasionally both hands. Followed a phase of tranquility which gave me a false notion that I managed to kill it. But it proved to be elusive again coming back with more ferocity like a wounded tiger. The solitary mosquito continued his guerrilla warfare against me leaving me thoroughly battle fatigued.
At that point I wished I could raise a while flag, letting it suck a stomach full of my blood and just leave me alone to continue my slumber. We heard from our legendary epic Mahabharat, when Duryodhan ordered killing of all the brothers of wily Shakuni, all of them died saving Shakuni so that the survivor can take the revenge on a later day on Duryodhan. It was payback time for the mosquito. The surviving one got its revenge back managing to harass me all night long to the solace of the restless souls of its siblings whom I earlier either killed or banished. Like SHAKUNI the mosquito had the last laugh.
Those who live in high rise apartments are lucky, as mosquitoes are not known to fly above 50 feet. In 1970s and 80s Bhubaneswar, mosquitoes were hardly a menace. We used to make fun of our friends from Cuttack as that city was infamous for its KATAKI MASA (mosquitoes from Cuttack), who are rumored to lift away people for miles. It's now payback time for them to poke fun at us. Now Bhubaneswar can give the other twin a run for money or might even beat them as far as mosquito menace goes. Now the old fashioned mosquito net works just fine for me. Though not a big fan of sleeping inside it, it's far preferred to a bug bitten, interrupted sleep.
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