23 August, 2007

Seven Bungalows Mosquitoes

It doesn’t feel like Bombay when I look outside my window: there is a vast expanse of green, mangroves almost as far the horizon, and the breeze is beautiful. Just standing by the open window I feel tranquil—till the mosquitoes attack.

Mosquitoes at my Seven Bungalows residence are a breed apart. Most mosquitoes can be shaken off, but not these buggers. A lifetime of dealing with mosquitoes has given me some reflexive patterns of behaviour, such as shaking myself when I sense that a mosquito is on me, which generally dislodges the pesky insect. Shaking doesn’t work with these fellers, though.

So I’ll be reading something or surfing the net, and will note a mosquito on my arm. I will shake it. The mosquito will stay seated, as if it is part of my arm. I will pick up a book or a remote control and aim for it, and it will slip away just in time, as I hurt myself grievously. (I shouldn’t read heavy books in hardback, I will tell myself.) Then the mosquito will come and sit on my other arm, and look at me with hurt in its eyes.

Sometimes, they attack in hordes. So I’ll be sitting in the loo, invitingly naked, glancing through pretty pictures in my local Bombay Times or HT Cafe, and some 74 of them will descend simultaneously on my body. (I exaggerate, I’m a blogger.) I will glance at them and vibrate. They will all vibrate with me. I will stop vibrating. They will stop vibrating. Then they will look at me, and, all together now, vibrate once more on their own, in a ridiculous caricature of the way I vibrate. You see, they will be mocking me.

I will vainly try to kill a few of them, but will only hurt myself in the process. Eventually I will stumble out of the loo with only half the blood I had when I went in, reeling under an onslaught that would make Spartans proud, and some idiot friend of mine will call. ”Yaar, don’t you get bored sitting at home all day?” he or she will ask. Bored?

Anyway, enough self-indulgence for today. I shall now go back to the lovely view from my window. Excuse me while I vibrate.