I have made an important unscientific discovery. It is in the realm of biology. To be precise, in the world of those little creatures we call pests. As a person coming from a typical farmer’s home, open to almost every sort of creature that’s looking for anything from a fly-by-night visit to long-term occupation, I am essentially immune to spiders, ants, cockroaches, house lizards, bats, bandicoots, rats, mice, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, hornets, snakes, termites, moths, beetles — you name it, I know it. But living in cities in claustrophobic homes where a so-called pest attempting to make a living under your roof looms larger than life, I too learned to start fighting them.
Delhi was where I lived the longest in any city, and there the worst battles were with cockroaches. And they fought back with ceaseless cunning and determination. Every act of extermination turned into a conflagration that upped the ante on me by ferocious fecundity. I had suspected even then that my pogroms had something to do with it. I also knew they had outlived the nuclear bomb which made them no small enemy.
It was after settling down in Thiruvananthapuram that I stumbled upon the amazing truth about pest-control by Ahimsa. Gandhiji would have loved me for this, for I am sure he too must have struck a few creatures for making themselves a nuisance. What would he have done if a mosquito bit him, is a useful speculation. If he just shooed it away, well, that’s Ahimsa in all its shining glory. But surely he must have slapped a few.
My first Thiruvananthapuram house on the second floor had coconut tree tops leveling with the windows. At night borer-beetles would float in from the trees like little aliens on softly whirring wings and inspect every nook and corner. I think they were looking for light they could eat. They would scrutinise me also closely and were not afraid.
One night, I launched a massive and blood-thirsty attack on the cockroaches in my store-room. I used every weapon — pesticide sprays, kerosene, broom stick — unleashing murder and mayhem. The casualty was high. I could smell the strong odour that rises when cockroaches die a violent death — some sort of a pheromone release.
Suddenly it happened. Flying creatures were streaming in through the windows!
I thought they were the beatles. But no! It was a horde of winged cockroaches coming in from the night outside. They landed everywhere, scrambled for cover and vanished.
I stood dumfounded, watching my war coming to a pathetic end. Those cockroaches had got wind of the massacre through the odour of death and they were retaliating by replacing the dead!
In the days that followed I learned my lesson. The more pests you kill, the more they hit back by going into an orgy of reproduction and replacement. Slowly I started smiling at spiders, pointing my finger reprovingly at house lizards and pretending not to have even seen ants. As for cockroaches I would only look at them sideways because I didn’t even want them to notice me.
I wish to tell readers that my house became amazingly free of these humble shareholders of our lives in a matter of a few months. The same situation prevails in my new house. Once in a while I run into one of them and all I do is to say, “Oh! For god’s sake!” and shake my head. My finding is that as long as they are not being massacred or forced to live in terror, they are too lazy to make love and go through all the hassle of reproduction except the minimum that species perpetuation demands. Good God! What if human beings followed suit!