The other day, I saw a dead cockroach inching forward. I hadn’t killed it, but it was there, and it was moving. Not wanting to fall for a ghostly apparition, a closer inspection revealed the movement to be the doing of an army of tiny ants. They had bagged a trophy.
Well, this happened at home, and homes are supposed to be “pest-free”. Here, a pest had fallen to a tragic end and turned into a feast for the ants. A fraction of the food chain was playing out before my eyes, that too in my home.
The previous day, I had watched the same cockroach (somehow I can identify them) battle a lizard. It was a long-drawn battle. Obviously the lizard had won, but was unable to swallow the creature, probably because the dead roach was too big for it. The lizard had moved on, looking for smaller, more easy-to-swallow prey.
I reported the matter to my horrified wife. Her horror was not because the cockroach has died, but because “pests” were ruling the roost – our roost.
The very next day, a pest control team presented itself at my doorstep. My home, for the next few hours, turned into a site of systematic “genocide”. At the end of it, when I saw a heap of cockroaches, lizards, and various types of insects, a thought crossed my mind. We had just put an end to coexistence.
Education begins at home, they say. Then one point stands out: We are trained not to co-exist. We call these poor blighters “pests”. Yes, just a one-word description for all the varieties of species which “invade” our homes. And we kill them – or keep them out – to keep our homes clean.
Some years ago, rats had targeted our home. One night, I decided to put a rat-trap. I heard the trap fall at around 2am and went back to sleep, happy that my mission was accomplished. The next morning, I was shocked to see it was not a rat, but a squirrel. And it was just half dead. I called the CUPA (Compassion Unlimited Plus Action) guys, who arrived with a vet and took the half-dead squirrel with them to revive it. Hours later, I called to inquire. I was in for a shock. They informed me that not only had the squirrel died, but that it was milking – which means, somewhere, the poor squirrel’s hungry babies were waiting for their mother, now dead, to return. A desperate bid to look for food to be able to feed her little ones had brought her to my home at an unearthly hour – which is so uncommon among squirrels – and she had fallen to what was meant for the rats. The rat-trap went out of the window.
I know we need a greater-than-imagined resolve to coexist with creatures that we have decided to refer to as “pests”, especially in urban locales, which comes with a lot of social baggage. Call it self-preservation, but one thing remains: We are trained not to coexist at the very root.
No wonder then, we don’t have it in our DNA.
Nirad Mudur
Senior Assistant Editor
niradgmudur@newindianexpress.com