Come ye, monsoon, and bring along thy friend, mosquito. This is supposed to be the theme song of the July-August era every year. Like the drip-drip pitter-patter rain, the weird shehnai that the female mosquitoes play almost right in to our ears soon gets beyond ignoring.
Thus, to tackle the mosquito menace, sometimes people pump like mad; at times, fight with the air with the electric bat as if it were a sword. Sometimes, the folded newspapers can smash a mosquito battalion at a go. I am not very good at this warfare. I prefer Odomos, and the good ole Good Night coil or its mat version.
Many people have to have the fan full blast on, even when it is raining like crazy, because the mosquitoes, it seems, choose to bite them despite the Odomos. Must be a particular odour their body releases, given their own unique chemical 'lochya' in the blood stream.
Mosquitoes love our ears, right? There is an African folk story about it which I translated in to Marathi. It was one of my first published stories. In fact, a set of five of these translations was published in "Kishore". Earlier, my 'poems' were published in the school magazine, but this was the first publication in a professional mag. I was in my mid-teens. Felt rather elated.
The original African story is quite some fun. It seems, the mosquito fell in love with the ear, and declared its passion. Given its skinny, thin avataar, the ear was highly amused, and dismissed the mosquito. So, it seems, the mosquito eternally buzzes past-n-around the ear to declare its living love as the ear happened to mock its death like appearance!
Such stories apart, I have always wondered at the mosquito's ability to fly up the high rise apartments. The critter may be small ( in Spanish, 'mosco' is a fly, and the suffix 'ito' indicates its small size), but it has the gall to fly to the twenty-fifth floor as well.
In brief, the mosquito, like the cockroach history, proves nature's mystery! Well, given the diadem they have formed above my head, I better immediately apply a thick coat of Odomos. Hopefully, it would be a good night, despite the mosquito music!
Pratima@ Mosquitoes may indeed be deadly/but they prove natural 'survival' truly!
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