Magician Nazrul Khan makes a miniature mosquito net appear as civic chief Krishna Chakraborty and councillor Rebecca Sultana hold up dengue prevention slogans. Picture by Saradindu Chaudhury

The municipality has resorted to magic to spread awareness about dengue. The drive started on August 30 with a magic show held outside route no. 206 bus terminus in AJ Block.

Magician Nazrul Khan caught commuters unawares as he took out a shiny, red cylinder from his bag. He showed the audience that it was hollow inside, waved his hands around it, uttered some magic words and voila! Out came a miniature mosquito net and a banner. While the banner carried information about dengue the mosquito net was a solution to the same, as it would protect readers from dengue-spreading mosquitoes.

The magician and his team performed four such tricks, and spoke on the issue in between. “Dengue-spreading mosquitoes breed in clean, stagnant water so please do not let water stand in your house. Check for water in tyres, pots and green coconut shells.”

Khan, a part-time magician and full-time farmer from Bolpur, is roped in by the government to conduct shows on themes like polio, AIDS and leprosy. This season he has been booked for 22 shows on dengue across the state, including Rajarhat and six spots in Salt Lake. Magic shows will be held outside City Centre, at Karunamoyee, Sukanta-nagar, Ward 1 (near Mahisbathan) and Ward 22 (Purbachal).

“Wherever I am performing, viewers are keen to learn about dengue,” said Khan. But the magician needs to brush up on his dengue knowledge quotient. He told the audience that the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread dengue can fly up to 100km! With the civic body finally taking steps to check the spread of dengue, the mosquitoes must be wishing they could indeed fly off that far but in reality they can fly only up to around 250m.

Little Tathagata Roy of Bidhannagar Municipal School was quite amazed that mosquitoes could fly so far. He did not know that the information was wrong. The boy stayed back for half-an-hour, missing out on his tuition to watch the magic tricks.

Kajal Dolui, a rickshaw-puller from Duttabad, also claimed to have picked up tips from the show. “I shall ask my neighbours to remove utensils containing water. I will see to it that my neighbourhood is clean,” he promised.

Chairperson of Bidhannagar Municipality Krishna Chakraborty was present at the show. She too told the audience about basic preventive measures, asking them to keep their surroundings clean.