Saswati Sengupta
In my childhood, I never met mosquitoes in the industrial town where I was brought up. I saw its picture in a hygiene book and I knew that one such tiny variety is responsible for malaria. The city was so clean that we never had to use mosquito net while sleeping and so, making the bed was quite an easy task.
Once, during summer vacation we happened to visit our relatives in one of the metropolis. I was quite excited to meet my cousin, aunts, uncles, and the whole bunch of relatives. The greatest attraction was the elaborate lunch and dinner. The only thing I didn't like was the uncovered drains with putrid smell; the potential breeding ground for the mosquitoes, and I got acquainted with the mighty mosquito when it pierced its sting to suck my precious drop of blood. I was yet to discover the other angle to the episode; at night I discovered myself in a mosquito net hanging around my bed. I was so thrilled to have a house inside the house that every day I eagerly waited for those hours when I could go inside the mosquito net. It was great to have a secluded and private place of my own!!! After the vacation, back home I never liked going to bed because I felt it was akin to lying amidst a crowd without any hope for privacy. I sincerely wanted to have a few mosquitoes in my neighborhood so that my dad would get us a mosquito net. Alas, nothing of that sort happened! Till that time I didn't know how disastrous would be my earnest desire for mosquitoes!!!
The real story started when I came back to the same metropolis to join college. By that time all the excitement I felt for the mosquito net was over because the childhood fun about mosquitoes had turned into a nightmare. Every day they used to invade our house around 3:30 in the evening. All the windows and doors were shut to prevent their entry inside the house. It looked like a haunted house since outside there would be bright sunshine. I started feeling terrible. In spite of that we never could stop their entry or prevent their attack during study time. It was so difficult to concentrate on studies. I became very vindictive, wanting to settle score. So I would resort to killing mosquitoes and heaped them in one corner of my study table to get a sense of sadistic pleasure by simply looking at the dead ones. This tiny creature is so intelligent that it knows all about strategies and time their attack just when their victims are inattentive. They sit on the fingertip while one is busy writing or on the elbow while one is eating. I always used to wonder if we had a net which could cover me along with the study table but nothing of that sort was available in the vicinity. Once my sister came up with a great idea, she smeared a plate with oil and started swirling the plate around the mosquitoes and so many got stuck in the plate!!! We used that strategy for days together to get rid of mosquitoes.
After marriage, I came to a hi-tech city in the Deccan plateau. We were staying in the outskirts. One evening, I found myself accompanied by a funnel of swarming mosquitoes moving just over my head. The funnel of mosquitoes accompanied me wherever I went. To my utter surprise I saw another man constantly moving a towel over his head to get rid of the marauders. By now I had learnt the strategy and started using my dupatta. Going out in the peak season was like an expedition; almost swimming through the ocean of mosquitoes!!!!
Both of us have a great aversion towards mosquito bite and can't tolerate a single mosquito hovering around. One day, my husband was busy reading a book in the study room and I was in the kitchen. Suddenly I found him missing. I searched every nook and corner of the house and to my utter surprise discovered him under the study table, engaged in killing mosquitoes which were biting him and disturbing his concentration. Such was our everyday encounter with the mosquitoes and we knew that we had to find our own strategy to live with them.
We are so vexed with this creature that we always carry a mosquito net whenever we go on a trip. Although it adds to the weight of the luggage but still it gives a sense of comfort that we can sleep undisturbed during our trip. In most of the places there is no arrangement for fixing the net and we end up in tying the ends in the handle of the chair or the leg of the table. Finally, the net eludes any geometrical shape so far known to mankind!!! Thus every night at late hours it ends up into a comedy show. So of late we started carrying the mosquito repellent cream in our travel kit. During one such trip when I got up one morning, to my utter surprise I found that few mosquitoes who had ventured to bite under the darkness of the night were lying dead beside me in the hotel cot. For at least once I was very happy to feel that I could foil its strategy to bite me during my sleep.
There are also many humorous stories and jokes surrounding mosquitoes. There is a joke saying that make a hole in the mosquito net, all the mosquitoes will go inside assuming that their target is sleeping inside the net. Then tie up the hole and happily sleep outside!!! This tiny creature thus has become a part and parcel of our life. In every house as we enter we can hear the humming of mosquitoes and also see either electrified bat or mosquito repellent used as an arsenal against mosquitoes. When my niece was a small baby she once said that a mosquito had come and sang a song for her. Now, she probably knows how dreadful the song is and this song puts all of us on alert for an immediate encounter with the mosquito.