Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Mosquito Offensive – Boogeymen in the Loo!

Ever thought twice before taking a pot (or in formal English, excreting!), simply due to fear?

The criterion for choosing the loo has changed. Now it depends on how infested the loo is…with mosquitoes. The process of choosing starts by sneaking through the door and looking at the white vitreous china covered with several black spots, like bombs in a mine field…one slight disturbance and they all blow up!

There are various classifications of people – one of them being those who aren’t affected by a mosquito bite, and those who get big blotches on their skin after they quench their thirst, like me. People like me just rub it slowly to ease the irritation. But in the loo, the level of disgust is so high that after a bite, you would rather leave the area untouched, grit your teeth and gulp down the pain.

If you might have noticed, the guys in our hostels have stronger abs than before. This ain’t because of some anti-obese or morning exercise revolution in the college, rather it’s due to the immense pressure they apply in the abdomen area to finish their ablution off as soon as humanly possible! The pressure once purely abdominal has become mental too!

Remember those days when the loo was the ideal place for bathroom singers to improve their rhythm or whistle their breaths out, while for others, to finish their morning paper or Archie comics? Sadly, it’s all changed now. The mosquitoes are an intelligent breed now. They know our weakness posture, they have realized our moment of utter helplessness when they can swoop down and bite our backs and bottoms, with blood gushing easily due to the strain on our legs.

Therefore I believe in evolution. With Goodknights and All-Outs and electronic rackets undermining their resistance and existence, they have shifted their roles – from night draculas to morning assailants, as well as their battleground – from the bedroom to the bathroom. What an ingenious method of assault with almost zero chance of losing lives…how the hell did they come know that we wouldn’t dare to kill them by merely imagining where they had been resting before?

It’s indeed strange that our hostels, literally being one of the most hygienic in the south (thanks a great deal to the red-uniformed cleaners for that!) could become prey to their breeding grounds. Newer techniques must be created to repel them, like a compulsory socket for All-out in every toilet, or more ambitiously, a centralized mosquito repellant system! What am I kidding…my historic hostel hasn’t changed one bit in the past 50 years (the same old sockets, door and bedstand!). Actually breeding dragonflies is enough (someone should!), for they feed on mosquito larvae. I don’t know about others, but frankly, as a way devised to decrease the frequency of their bites, I now use my towel to beat around my back!