If Salt Lake was an independent republic, we’d have a mosquito as a mascot. 

Early settlers took a certain pride in the size and population density of mosquitoes when not engaging in an epic battle against the species. Their guests usually believed in discretion being the better part of valour and left before dusk. That was also because the desert town had a handful of buses plying and offered very slim chances of escape if people got lost.

ngels may have their halo, but we had the devilishly dark, buzzing mosquito swarm that fascinatingly enough followed us around after sundown. History, with its cavalier disregard for novelty, keeps repeating itself. And now it seems we stand at the same juncture.

If Mosquito Wars 1.0 was all about malaria, the biological weapon this time is dengue. If cincona or quinine was force-fed to wriggling kids and recalcitrant adults then, papaya leaves now dominate a large part of the para conversations. And in any case, the worst casualty is the fare on our dinner table, then and now, because heavens help a Bengali household that doesn’t counter any threat with pnepe sheddho (boiled papaya) and uchchhe (bitter gourd). 

Maybe some day, some mashima will figure how to neutralise a nuclear threat with neem pata bata too. But I digress. 

Net set and mat

The wars have made us pay a heavy price with resources and troop morale. Double sets of mosquito nets (you must keep spare sets for emergency), the prehistoric repellent coils and mats that took away half your lung capacity with a single whiff, fine nets on the windows that lasted barely weeks against the assault of feral cats... And who can forget the ignominy of going to a biyebari with the carefully pampered and perfumed skin, inescapably shiny and sticky with a fine patina of Odomos mercilessly applied by parents.

Mosquito Wars 2.0 has seen the darkness descend on us. As soon as it became known that the daytime bite is a far more potent threat, we bolted our windows and switched on the lights. In fact, the electricity board should be petitioned to give the township a dengue discount in the next billing cycle. Keeping the house clean and bathrooms dry is not enough.  

There’s the kitchen, the attic, the terrace, the side alleyways. Actually it’s very good cardio and has been making some of us tone up pretty nicely. 

But then, we always took Voltaire very seriously, albeit a tad too literally. Il faut cultiver son jardin (One should cultivate one’s garden), he wrote in Candide. ‘Yeah, come and see my roses and then we will talk,’ has been a standard Salt Lake state of mind. Now we are not just content with our own gardens. We must oversee those of our neighbours too. 

To keep or to junk pots

Some extremely frosty exchanges have happened over planters left out in the rain. If the pessimists are in favour of extreme caution what with the possibility of mosquito larvae breeding in accumulated water, the optimists are holding on to the tubs filled with prepared soil in anticipation of the September planting for winter flowers. Expecting either party to give up is an unreal dream, so the fence-sitters have resorted to idly hedging bets on which neighbour wins the daily argument.

If kids were catching a Pikachu or whatever Pokemon used to congregate in this side of the sticks before the game Pokemon Go got blocked, the adults have emulated them with their passionate pursuit of mosquitoes. For crying out loud, one never expected to hear the word larvae pronounced so many times outside of an entomology conference. Bringing news of freshly discovered larvae provides them the same thrill as Pokemon eggs hatching does to their grandkids. And it is inevitably in the next block, no matter which block you stay in.

But then, it is a township where an entire generation discovered the thrill of killing with electronic repellent shaped like a badminton racquet, making a Satanic, satisfying crackle when insects came in contact. Early and prolonged exposure to such things tend to make people a bit single-minded in their pursuits. 

However, that the threat persists is established and is no matter of levity. Perhaps that is why we suddenly know that it is the World Mosquito Day on August 20. We know when was the last time the municipal workers sprayed insecticide. We know the exact figures and facts reported on the dengue outbreak. 

But however much this stings, it’s not the best of ideas to indulge in panic-mongering. Save that for the time a monstrous mosquito statue may be erected on a traffic island in the name of public art. That, will indeed, suck.

 

How have you been fighting the mosquito menace?
Write to The Telegraph Salt Lake, 6 Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta 700001 or email to saltlake@abpmail.com