Netaji Bhavan, scene of a termite attack. A Telegraph picture

If India’s national enemy is the bed bug, Calcutta’s enemy number one is the rat. If the problem with bed bugs is people not wanting to report them, fearing loss of social prestige, rats, being too sharp, are tricky to tackle.

These are all job hazards for the pest management team at Godrej Hicare, which is helping many of Calcutta’s heritage buildings fight the tiny terminators.

“At Netaji Bhavan, Subhas Chandra Bose’s bed was infested with termites. One leg and a side were badly attacked. We also had to treat the library, the conference hall and its false ceiling. Even the split air-conditioner was not spared,” recalls Hicare client partner Pralay Kanti Chaudhuri.

Then, there was the piano in the library of Jorasanko Thakurbari. “We worked on that, as well as some paintings in the room.” Another rescue operation took place in Rammohun Library in Maniktala. “The books were the termite target there. Though some were beyond repair, we managed to save most.”

The problem with a termite attack is that nothing can be made out from outside, explains S. Anand, executive vice-president, Godrej Hicare. “Inside, they leave a deep hollow.”

His team works for heritage structures across the country — the Bombay University in Mumbai, the Santhome Cathedral in Chennai...

The situation is worsening due to the mushrooming buildings, which would obviously have rainpipes. “A pest looks for two things — food and shelter. Our job is to understand its behaviour and then design the control method. It is not enough to reach the spot and do an Arnold Schwarzenegger,” says Anand.

So, the strategy is less of an all-out attack and more of a cerebral checkmate. “The challenge is to keep human exposure to a minimum and make it as deadly as possible to the pests. For cockroaches, we use a syringe gun that deposits a drop of gel in cracks. Cockroaches just take a lick. But death does not come before 10 hours, so that the affected insect comes in contact with other cockroaches and spreads the poison in places where we cannot reach.”

Rats, though, are a different proposition. “When we started working at Calcutta Club, we were told that the rats plaguing them were travelling from as far as Curzon Park. No wonder, in the US, they are working on rat-free architecture.” We, Indians, who did not plan to “block the entry” while building our houses, have to focus on Rules Two and Three of pest control — deny ’em entry and worse, kill ’em.