ROMANCING MOSQUITOES: THE INDIAN WAY

The writer is an amateur blogger. While the writer’s close aides (which only include his wife & 1.5 year old kid) celebrate his writing, his friends get infuriated for calling him a ‘writer’. One of the writer’s biggest contributions is the evolution of the phrase ‘bathroom writer’ (meaning in close proximity to ‘bathroom singer’). Through this blog ‘Romancing Mosquitoes, the Indian way’ the writer drives away the point of how the Indian system, people, to be precise, get induced by innumerable ‘groups’, who despite political will, act like termites in depriving the basic standard of living to this society.

As forced upon every writer in this democracy, this blog also has its usual disclaimer that, this in no 
way harms or disrespects any human.

Dedicated to those mosquitoes which pricked me yesterday. If not for those mosquitoes, I might not have written this.

When the campaigns for the local body election started heating up, the contestants were geared up with promises each running into several pages. Few of them still believed in the time tested ‘free’ clothing scheme, but people have become rich enough to take care of their clothing need from “Saravana stores”. Election promises were typically no-brainers and neither the contestant nor the people really care about the feasibility of delivering such promises. Most of us love fantasy, after all this is the ‘Land of Rajnikanth’.

Finally, here was the man who quenched this thirst. He brought them to the edge. Heads turned, Jaws dropped, and hands went up in the air. People removed their dhotis and waved which was a symbol of extreme joy!!! It was at this moment, he knew for sure that he has hit the bull’s eye. It was one of the real, common and perennial problems many middle & lower class people were facing. The man did not even think for a while that delivering this promise was actually going to be a mammoth task. He was distinguished and renowned overnight in the locality as “Kosukolli Kangeyan”. (In simple translation, it means ‘mosquito killer’ kangeyan. The word Kangeyan denotes ‘bull’ which symbolizes manliness). The promise he gave was to ‘abolish mosquitoes’ in the area!

A month later….. ‘Kosukolli Kangeyan’ is now the area’s ward member. It was time to deliver his promise. He called the local ward council meeting. From his ward fund allocation, he ordered massive ‘fogging’ operation. This fogging operation was so intense, so much so, through the satellite images of NASA, US could have even shot an email to India about India hiding a weapon of mass destruction in its southern province. Along with fogging operations, the ward counselor even distributed free ‘All Out’ and ‘Odomos’ creams. Having sacrificed his studies at the age of 10, this free ‘All Out’ scheme itself was path breaking as per Indian political standards & lauded by his party men as visionary.  All these efforts, though temporary, started showing quick results and as a result, the population of man- biting mosquitoes came down drastically.

But our ‘Kangeyan’ did not anticipate problems coming from a different way. The local area ‘Green panel’ division sued him. Reason, ‘Mass destruction of mosquitoes’ could lead to huge ecological imbalance as there would not be any prey for mosquito predators. Also, thousands of plant species would lose a group of pollinators. They organized mass camps and distributed ‘mosquito badges ‘and pamphlets to people about the possibility of another ‘Tsunami’. Soon, a group of NGOs, from HNIs and NRIs living in the US started funding these initiatives and they marched on the shores of “Coromandal” with billboards saying ‘Kill Kosukolli; We love mosquitoes’. People even started tattooing mosquitoes. With beautiful gals all dressed up in chic T shirts and skinny jeans, parking their BMWs & joining this march, the media too opened their slot for this stupendous cause to raise their TRPs. This is the same panel which stopped the ‘Elevated expressway’ project citing ecological imbalance. These panel refuse to accept that this world’s greatest metropolises are ‘port cities’ having their biggest physical infrastructure only along the coastlines. This is the same group which stopped another ‘road project’ since it affected the free flow of a river called ‘Cooum’. Anyone native of this place know, what river ‘Cooum’ symbolize.

Our man who has politics running in his DNA know very well that all these glitz and glamour of these green panel would die once the ad agencies stop sponsoring to these media(s). But the problem took a different twist. The opposition party which till sometime was keeping silence started brainwashing the fishermen community which is the biggest vote bank in the area. They brought in a name called Mr. John Addicott, who according to them was  a researcher in University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Indians has lot of belief & trust on foreigners, due to the slavery & inferiority feeling injected by our rulers several decades before. That is why all the DPRs, feasibility reports for our government projects also were done by firms like Wilbur Smith, JLL etc as though there is death of talent here. Even real estate companies sell housing units by quoting some tongue twisting names calling them as their ‘principal’ architects.

Now, coming back to John Addicott: The opposition went on with a massive campaign that killing mosquitoes would actually affect the livelihood of thousands of fishermen as it would kill their daily yield of fishes. As per the research, Mosquito larvae makeup substantial biomass in aquatic ecosystem and remain as a great feed for several kinds of fishes. Our political parties knew very well how to use the ignorance of the people. In our democracy, the beneficiaries of government/ scheme never ever gather and voice their views. Whereas, the affected people if they have a strong influential political connections can go any miles to show their strength to give a myth that they outnumber the beneficiaries. In the course, they even influence the policy makers.

Come today: This ward remains the highest producer of mosquito larvae at the same time boasting highest consumerism in ‘All out’ and ‘Odomos’ sales. Our ‘Kosukolli Kangeyam’ though lost his adjective, still survives by distributing free dhotis and sarees. The ‘Men in yellow’ outside the ground, appear in ‘Yellow fever’ awareness programs.

- Hari