Kill these tiny blood-suckers!

Kill these tiny blood-suckers!

Last week I said I had things on my mind other than kakdi and I believe what I am going to say would not be considered frivolous. In fact, if somebody has a solution, please share it, so that it brings some respite from the problem.

Ever wondered why God or whoever is responsible for creation of this world, made so many species of creatures? Was His sole aim making life difficult for human beings? What is the purpose of such living beings on this planet, especially the ones which are the no-good kinds?

I am talking about mosquitoes. I have no idea where they come from. They are everywhere any time of the day. These tiny insects land on your skin like fighter jets and within a few seconds, you feel a strong itch, sometimes a rash also comes up and you can see the few millimeter-long devil ballooning up with your blood.

When they bite (it should be called a sting) they suck the blood and transfer their saliva to the victim. Some kinds suck in pathogens, transmitting it to the next victim. In this way they act as the vectors transmitting malaria, filariasis, yellow fever, Chikungunya, Zika fever, dengue fever and many more diseases.  

The female needs nutrients from blood to help produce eggs or to lay more eggs. And she is equipped with sensors-heat, visual and chemical, to find either nectar or its prey.

Just visualize the size of brain of this small creature! Claire Bates writes:

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35408835

The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, carrying diseases that kill one million people a year…There are 3,500 known species of mosquito but most of those don't bother humans at all, living off plant and fruit nectar.

It's only the females from just 6% of species that draw blood from humans - to help them develop their eggs. Of these just half carry parasites that cause human diseases. But the impact of these 100 species is devastating.

"Half of the global population is at risk of a mosquito-borne disease," says Frances Hawkes from the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich. "They have had an untold impact on human misery."

Strangely, there are stories about their origin. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito

One Ostiak myth tells of a man-eating giant, Punegusse, who is killed by a hero but will not stay dead. The hero eventually burns the giant, but the ashes of the fire become mosquitoes that continue to plague mankind.

Other myths from the Yakuts, Goldes and Samoyed have the insect arising from the ashes or fragments of some giant creature or demon. Similar tales found in Native North American myth, with the mosquito arising from the ashes of a man-eater, suggest a common origin. The Tatars of the Altai had a similar myth, thought to be of Native North American origin, involving the fragments of the dead giant, Andalma-Muus, becoming mosquitos and other insects.

Winsor McCay's1912 film How a mosquito Operates was one of the earliest works of animation, which has been described as far ahead of its time in technical quality.  It depicts a giant mosquito tormenting a sleeping man.

The de Havilland Mosquito was a high-speed aircraft manufactured between 1940 and 1950, and used in many roles.

The problem is one step ahead of these tiny irritants. The issue is the creepy-crawly reptile which races after them trying to lap its mouth shut on each insect. I loathe it with such intensity that even taking its name makes me feel like throwing up.

So with this aim I have vowed to kill any mosquito found buzzing inside the house. Even though Ms Bates’ article says

According to Phil Lounibos, an entomologist at Florida University, mosquito eradication ‘is fraught with undesirable side effects’.

He says mosquitoes, which mostly feed on plant nectar, are important pollinators. They are also a food source for birds and bats while their young - as larvae - are consumed by fish and frogs. This could have an effect further up and down the food chain.

However Biologist Olivia Judson says, “We're not left with a wasteland every time a species vanishes,”.

But for Lounibos, the fact this niche would be filled by another insect is part of the problem. He warns that mosquitoes could be replaced by an insect ‘equally, or more, undesirable from a public health viewpoint’. Its replacement could even conceivably spread diseases further and faster than mosquitoes today.

Some people still swear by mosquito-nets, the tent-like structure you fix on poles on the four corners of your bed. The problem is it has to be put up every evening and taken off in the morning. And God forbid, if you are a little careless and a mosquito gets in stealthily, your whole night’s sleep is ruined. For those getting up during the night, getting back into the net and tucking the net carefully back in without meaning to disturb anything or anyone, might itself become a cause of insomnia.

The old method was to cover yourself with a sheet and run the fan on full speed so that these tiny trouble-makers would not be able to settle on the skin. The old wives’ remedy was to burn neem (margosa) leaves in the closed room but the smoke can be suffocating. My father, cautious about allergies, suggested applying eucalyptus and citronella oils on skin.

For now I am not talking of remedies to soothe the itch following the bite.

I have tried smearing myself with various odd-smelling repellant gels and creams which sometimes make removing them difficult. There are room sprays, vaporisers, even coils and agarbattis (incense sticks) or candles, not to forget patches and roll-ons to ward off the mosquitoes.

A couple of years ago somebody got me a small machine. He explained once plugged in, the light creates warmth close to human body temperature (there is no thermometer on it) and the mosquitoes settle on it, burning themselves to death.

But perhaps after coming to know of Darwin’s theory, the machchhars (mosquitoes) also evolved over time and now they are immune to most of the weapons.

Partially successful with all these measures, I have started following a multi-pronged strategy:

use the latest addition to my weaponry - the chargeable hand-held racquet. Flay your arms around in the room like a Ninja. There is a tiny button on the racquet and pressed near the vicinity of the insect, it electrocutes it.

• switch on the vaporizer and the electric machine,
• cover yourself,
• run the fan and the air conditioner.
• Yet, as a reflex action, I still try to catch them between my hands and clap them to an unceremonious demise. In the bathroom the effort is to trap them between wet soapy hands.

Although the mosquitoes are not seen much in intense heat or cold, those days bring their own troubles.

Meanwhile, spring, summer and rains may mean songs and romance to some people, for me it is to avoid the entry of the crawling ‘L’ on the walls, so my days of being busy trying to wipe out its sources of food are here.

                                                                                          -Anupama S Mani