There are many ways to kill mosquitoes. None of them works.

For a long time, human beings have been preyed on by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes date back to the Jurassic era, when there were no human beings, though Steven Spielberg’s movies had some. Ancient people apparently burnt rice straw to drive away mosquitoes and modern people have invented technologies, but it is clear that there has been no fully satisfactory means available to win the long-term fight against them. No satisfaction granted.

I am a warrior against mosquitoes, though so far I have been besieged by a feeling that the enemy is more powerful, clever and sly than me. It’s what the armless Thakur kept feeling till he had Gabbar under his spiked shoes and began to jump all over him, though how he kept his balance is still a secret. But that’s what I call pinning the enemy down. I want to do it too. I want to crush the enemy. I want to strangle my critics. I want to kill, kill, kill, kill, kill — mosquitoes. (Or should it be cull, cull, cull, cull, cull? For when the government kills, it’s called culling. It’s far more authoritative.)

Though my enemy is much smaller in size. But it’s the age of Nano. And I am not one to give up.

I use strategy number one: the mosquito-swatter. The swatter is a popular device that could have been mistaken for a tennis racquet, only it ends abruptly. A swatter is to a tennis racquet what Mini Me is to Dr Evil. It is very efficient. It emits a low voltage from the mesh that kills mosquitoes but poses no hazard to humans. Though it is made in China. It has been exported to 54 countries.

The swatter makes an athlete out of me. I have fun and games. Targeting groups of mosquitoes hanging out in several spots of my bedroom, I begin with a slow forehand, follow it up with a leisurely backhand, dash to the baseline and do a waltz. I have some of the enemy falling to my expert moves. I bring the swatter down like lightning. It’s an ace. Sometimes I move sideways, just for effect, holding the swatter aloft proudly.

It works, to an extent. There are a few mosquitoes caught in the mesh. But only very few. The rest have fled to the ceiling. The makers of the swatter did not factor in one consideration — my height. I am playing like Nadal on clay, perfect choreography, but Nadal and Federer are about the same height, even on clay. And my enemy just flies away to the ceiling.

If I try to fly, I fall down with a thump. Man has not made much individual progress since Icarus.

I try the next best thing — I switch on the plug-in electric mosquito repellant. Its special liquid repellant is meant to lure and kill the little rough beasts. I lie in bed, watching its effect. This too seems to work at first, with the mosquitoes, which had flown down fearlessly by now, moving away from it in little waves. But then they again float up to the ceiling. They look down on me.

I am a homicidal maniac now. I want to turn on the killer gas. I light the mosquito coil — and chase the tiny bloodthirsty groupies feeding off me. I hold the burning coil as near to them as possible, though the noxious fumes almost drive me, a human, away. But I want to choke them to death. Some of them drop to the floor in slow motion, as if in a stupor. The rest, however, fly up again to the ceiling.

Desperate, I switch on the fan, at full speed. I want to see dead bodies in shreds. Even the Nazis did not do that in their gas chambers. I leave.

When I come back after half an hour, I find the room relatively mosquito-free. But in another half an hour, they are again buzzing around my head, when the rest should have been silence.

I fasten the mosquito net to the four nails at the four corners of my bedroom. I am doomed.

chandrima@ abpmail.com