Winter went away and in its wake brought in mosquitoes in their swarms. The rise in temperature brings out the ‘streaky sorcerer(s)’, the ‘ghoul(s) on wings’ (D H Lawrence had some highly misplaced romantic notions about mosquitoes) in vast numbers. People use all sorts of repellants to varying degrees of success and resort to jugaad to exterminate or at least drive away the ‘pointed fiend’ that destroys our रातों की नींद, दिन का चैन.
This guy seems to have achieved peaceful slumber by virtue of a mosquito bat and an oscillating table fan. It’s the double whammy: the draft of air keeps the biters away; the rest are electrocuted by the bat that zaps.
If winter ends, can spring the mosquitoes be far behind? No sooner do temperatures rise than the mosquitoes come swarming out to pester, bite, infect and make life generally miserable.
OK, they bite us because… survival, but why are they so selective about whom to bite! Is it blood group? Gender? Age? Shampoo /soap? Perfume? Personal charisma? While some of us get bitten to ribbons, others seem not to make as attractive a meal for mosquitoes.
The All-Out plug-in, Odomos, mosquito coil, repellant bracelet, spray repellant… nothing seems to work! These are all supposed to keep them away, but the pesky buzzers don’t seem to have got the memo.
So you sprayed Baygon, lit up a coil and slathered yourself with Odomos. You are now nicely wrapped up in a sheet and are slipping into dreamland when the dreadful drone of the ‘translucent phantom shred’ destroys your peace and wellbeing.
Back in the day, sun down sleeves down used to be the motto in the army to prevent the blighters from biting. However, the mosquitoes figured out a way around that a long time ago.
I don’t know about you, but I derive deep satisfaction from the sizzling sound of a mosquito getting electrocuted or the sight of it squished on my palm.
You hear it. You definitely feel the itchy, irritating bumps that the bites caused. But you cannot see it/ them!
They do, really, carry our blood! Sometimes you can see it in the bloated, distended belly. You can also tell what they have been feasting on when the bloody contents of that belly are satisfyingly splattered around after the kill.
We wouldn’t mind if they sucked out fat. But instead of taking fat, they generously give us malaria, dengue, chikungunya, falciparum, zika virus, west nile virus and more!
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