Flies Inc

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Hyderabad is a historical city with many crumbling palaces, stinking lakes, teeming masjids, tottering museums, towering sky-homes and a cosmopolitan culture.

It has a colorful character of its own...like say Calcutta.

It has a salubrious climate being dry and at a height away from the seacoast.

If I were younger by half a century, I would have taken innumerable bus-rides and enjoyed its attractions.

As it is, I am bed-ridden in the sense that I stay lolling in bed most of the day.

But I enjoy the whole gamut of the city vicariously by a wonderful vehicle called Deccan Chronicle.

This daily has an ineffable character of its own.

In 2004 it was but an unreadable rag limited to the hoi polloi of the city.

But then M J Akbar, the Great, took over as the Editor-in-Chief and transformed it within a couple of years into a widely read daily with numerous editions in many towns of AP as well as Chennai, Bangalore and so on.

I love it and spend the most part of the day browsing it. I also take ToI, but it is a filler.

It has many features that grip me.

Its print is clear and easy on the eye. It has several stunning color photos on each page. Also several on its header-banners on each page. It has wonderful cartoons by Subhani and Sudhir Telang. It has an Editor's Page and an Op-Ed page with several pleasing articles from the stalwarts of not only Indian Journalism but from syndicated columnists from NY Times, London Times, Guardian, Spectator, Herald Tribune and many others.

But its forte, for me, is that like me it is totally erratic in its English. This was an inspiration for my booklet: Limericks & Light Verses and several blogs.

But the best part is that it comes up with piquant tidbits that excite my fancy.

RKN wrote that he used to read newspapers for their tidbits, human interest and others, which not only pleased him but gave him several ideas for his blogs.

Today, for instance, this 'news' item took me by storm and led me to nostalgia:

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London, June 28:

People who have consumed a pint or two of beer are 15% more likely to be bitten by a mosquito, according to a new research.

Researchers believe the pests are attracted to odour and breath changes caused by alcohol. They added that mosquitoes could have learnt to associate the beer odour with an increased lack of defensiveness against bites from boozy drinkers.

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I leave it to the imaginative readers to explore for their own pleasure the various ramifications of this invaluable piece of research which are mind-boggling.

In my boyhood in my seaside village I don't recall having met with any mosquito. Maybe, I was so tired after a whole day of outdoor play that I didn't just feel their bites. But for sure there were no mosquito nets, not to talk of repellents. Perhaps, the sandy soil absorbed all water and they couldn't breed these bloodsuckers.

The first mosquitoes that bled me were the giant king-sized animals at KGP. The Faculty Hostel where I lived for seven sucker years was prone to all-night power cuts whenever there was a Nor'Wester. I didn't have the cash to buy a mosquito net under which all Bengalis lived most of their lives. And I was claustrophobic to boot.

So, I used to heave myself to the iron bench on the lawn and spend the whole night sky-watching and smoking.

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Flies are the first cousins of mosquitoes. But unlike these vampires, flies are a hell of a nuisance.

When I was staying in my MD Doctor uncle's place for two years, I developed a hostile aversion for them. His wealthy patients used to gift him gunny bags of delicious mangoes. That was it...the whole house became a swarm of flies. Since then I run away from any mango I see and never buy them for myself.

The problem with flies is that they land on your nose, ears, and such other tender body parts and tickle you. And they are so smart and 'fly' away before you can 'land' them.

But they are diurnal creatures and don't disturb you in the night, as opposed to mosquitoes. Between the two, they trouble you the whole day.

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Then there were bedbugs. These are the real vampires...mosquitoes are just kids.

My University town of Vizagh was overflowing with them. One could see armies of bedbugs crawling up the walls in the daytime; and they 'fall' down on beds in the night.

They are insidious...they wait till you are sound asleep...and they inject a very tiny but effective dose of anesthetic and lull you before they start feeding on your blood. You realize the harm done to you much after these buddies left your body...you start itching all over..and can't go to sleep again.

I have taken readings and found that they swell ten times their volume after they are done with you...in the daytime they look like ants...and at dawn they look like beetles.

Tik-20 eradicated them.

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Then there were leeches.

Most of you might not have seen them.

They reside in ponds and riverbeds.

And when you jump in and take that refreshing bath and come out, you will notice that there is a tiny worm that attached itself to your leg. You try to shuffle it off first by shaking your leg, then by dancing, then by literally holding it and trying to tear it away...no way.

You run home and by then the leech would have swollen by a factor of ten and still going.

There is only one way to get it off you...add a pinch of lime (choon); and it will drop down and crawl away.

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If you thought that this blog is merely about the flykind, you are mistaken.

It is an allegory...

Webster:

allegory

: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence

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