Saala ek Macchar Aadmi ko…

Louie hu mein,

Beemari jab failaoo,

Gol-gol khillauno se khelna main chahu,

Jaise *Ball, aur *Mosquito Coil!!”

Note:- * are mere figments of a corroding imagination and a memory going down the Alzheimer lane.

This piece of composition created by one of the brightest minds in the world went on to win numerous accolades and adulation, including mine, of course. I was a bloke studying in the fifth (or was it the sixth?) grade when I first saw the commercial and became an admirer faster than Astatine-217 disintegrates. Louie, at that time, seemed an affable, suave, even lovable character. I still remember the smouldering looks of approval from my grade 6 (or 5?) crush among others of the fairer sex as I, with my voice not yet matured enough to render songs in a baritone, crooned the above flawlessly, with two of my pals giving me company for the chorus. The completion saw me taking a bow before the peers.

Times have changed, and its abruptness is palpably conspicuous.

IIT Bombay, as others may not know, is a jungle (not the kind you see in Ram Gopal Varma’s movies, at least they have ONE sexy siren among the Teaks and the Seshams, be it Urmila or Nisha Kothari) wherein you hear rumours of a panther or an alligator sighting almost every other day. However, there is an organism among the myriad ones mentioned whose sightings aren’t rumours, they are facts testified by every damn IITian who sees their wraithlike manifestations every damn time every-fucking-where.

They are the Motherfucking Mosquitoes.

There are approximately 100 different flying leeches of the Anopheles variant, the ones who carry the plasmodium whatchamacallits in their stomachs and vomit them as soon as they penetrate with their proboscis, violating our skin’s modesty. These sonofabitches strike anytime they please, anywhere they think prudent. Each member of the student community swears aloud once he/she gets victimised by these small, agile, confounded creatures.

Look at how small, helpless, desolate it looks, except for that one sting that makes all the difference. That, in fact, is the Spear of Satan, a weapon of mass destruction that does not kill, but tortures. They harass your unassuming selves by biting you around the clock, and if somehow the Almighty has made your hide comparable to that of a river horse on account of which you remain unperturbed, they whizz past your ears, driving you reckless, raving mad. Even the thought of Dracula gulping down blood from my veins doesn’t scare me more than these guys do.

Here inside the insti, one of their favourite haunts is the Bhavani Juice Centre. This juice centre caters to a large faction, and the mosquitoes here are not only numerous but enormous. As soon as you order a drink and loiter about as it is being prepared, the army arrives and before you know you are reeling under an attack. It starts with a minor itching on your arms. Then legs. The indiscriminate need to scratch everywhere foists your brain into a state of imbroglio. You don’t even notice when it was exactly that you started to dance the primitive Samba.

However, their favourite watering hole is the washroom, colloquially referred to as the Hostel’s Haggu. Whether you are shitting, pissing, shaving, or clearing your throat, they show no mercy. The moment you are proceeding with an extremely intricate part of the shaving process, one of ‘em comes and does it, drawing blood from two places. The rest of the process has to be handled while performing the Onelegasaana, scratching one leg with the other.

Another incident occurred when I was shitting. The Haggu of our wing contains 1 Western and 4 Indian style shitpots. Some crackhead jackass in a fit of vandalism demolished the bolt of the only Western shitpot. I, a connoisseur of the Western commode, had no option but to do the job in the Indian one.

Western has the added advantage that it shields your bum from mosquitoes; your legs are your own look out. The Indian style offers no such respite. Your bums are exposed to the entire population, hanging there tantalisingly like a melon cleaved in half stinking like shit. It was while I was washing the filth when one came along and smooched one of my arsecheeks.

The itchy pain Oh Holy Mother of Christ!

The reader can well imagine why I couldn’t simply scratch it away.

The tensions run high. During the semester examinations, professors take an equal share of abuses along with mosquitoes.  Even the Hundred Year’s War wasn’t long enough to match the ongoing battle between Humans and Mosquitoes. I go on to state that on Judgement Day, it won’t be the Artificial Intelligence Robots, but Mosquitoes we shall be battling. All the All-outs and Morteins aren’t enough to quell their ever expanding populace.

The war wages in all its ferocity, which could be judged from the following excerpt.

Scene:- Couple of students hanging out in a mate’s room, when the door opens and a student pilfers in excitedly.

“ I killed a fucking mosquito with my legs!” Says he, holding out the dead remnants as a showpiece.

“NO WAY!”

“Yes buddy…it was right there, on my right ankle….right here… I thought if I bent down to kill it precious microseconds would be wasted…moreover the bastard might have escaped…so I just took my left leg and splat!”

“Whooooaaaaaaaa maaaaan!!! You are the dude!!” said someone, while someone Hi-5-ed the warhero.

“Super cool!”

Finally, there remains to be shared a video file I came across while doing research for this article. A very popular one, it reflects my state of mind as of others too.

May the Human Race emerge triumphant in this conflict and thrash any hopes of the motherfuckers for world domination…

Amen…