
Once bitten, several times bitten
I don't know what it was that bit me the other night whilst I was sleeping but it certainly had a damn good feed. In fact judging by the number of bites over my right ear and on the back of my head, whatever it was seems to have rung a few friends up and invited them over for lunch as well.
Mosquito bites go with the territory unfortunately, particularly at this time of year. Before I settled in India and was just the occasional business traveller, I used to come armed with pills to ward off malaria. Six of them tasted OK but the seventh was disgusting and you had to take these for the duration of the trip plus, I think, for one month after you got back. When I moved here I gave up the idea of taking pills and in any event, Bangalore is not one of those places where malaria is a problem.
But malaria or no malaria, those damned insects still bite and there have been recent outbreaks of chikangunya and dengue in the city. The children sleep under nets but we don't, and this last week or so I've been bitten to pieces. The bites on my head are very painful and I wonder in fact whether it was something else other than a mosquito that bit me. Like a Bengal Tiger for instance.
In any event, our evening routine remains the same. We sweep our bedroom and bathroom with one of those mosquito zappers shaped like a tennis racket. Press the button and a small electric charge runs through the "strings"; enough to give out an unpleasant tingle if you happen to inadvertently "bat" your wife, but fatal for a mosquito. If it doesn't kill them straight away, it certainly fries them a little. "Tssss" they go, as they hit the charge (and when Niharika was just learning to speak she knew that a dog went "woof", a cat went "miaow", a cow went "moo", a mosquito went "tssss" and a cockroach went "splat").
But inevitably there's always one or two that you miss or that somehow sneak in during the night and one or two is all that it takes. When we move I think we'll take a leaf out of our children's books and sleep under a net.
Originally published on Blogger on 8th July 2008. But I've not slept under a net since.






