When The Mosquito Dies..

@Viswamitra
My dear Viswa
I am awfully sorry to have taken four days to respond to your FB particularly when it came within 30 minutes of my OP. I have no tangible reason for this delay. You know how men of my age go into a trance and spend a lot of time thinking about nothing. You will have to wait for another 15 to 20 years to experience this frequent mental freeze.
I am happy that you were able to connect to my thought process.

Don't feel sorry about this. Every living being is fully equipped to conduct its own training programme. You could see it among the crows, ants, monkeys etc. See a meeting of the crows and the authority written on the face of the boss:

And who gets elated when a big fish catches a human as we saw in 'Jaws'? We have so much of self-aggrandisement that we pose ourselves as super-beings of the universe. Be it a fight for survival against an animal or extra-terrestrial beings, we always come thumbs up!

That's indeed a typical Viswa brilliance!
Sri

 

@Srama
My dear Sabi
So much of praise for some senile introspection!

Truly so and it is really unfortunate. Till about some 100 years back, man was never this self-centered as he is today. As a result, he is keen on making the planet his own and in the process destroying all its resources. We lament that India's capital is most polluted in the country but we never realize that we are responsible for it. We talk of a huge hole in the ozone layer as if some aliens have some and done it to ruin us. Birds and animals consider Earth as a 'Kalpakavriksh' without realising that humans are trying to chop it off.

Have you seen the movie 'Birds' by Alfred Hitchcock? See how the birds rise against the atrocities of humans? Now it is mosquito and tomorrow it may be eagles and vultures.

Precisely. When we rob them of their legitimate hideouts what will do but to walk into our dwelling place? We have just forgotten the meaning of symbiosis.

I am sure you know that only female mosquitoes thrive on human blood. It has been going on from the days of Eve!
Sri

 

@satchitananda
My dear Satchi

A famous Tamil poet and saint of the 9th Century called Manikkavasagar sang that even if he was to be born again as a worm, his mind should remain fixed on the lotus feet of God. It tells us that even tiny creatures like worms could have lofty thoughts, loftier than humans.

Definitely. There is an episode in the life of Bhagwan Ramana Maharshi. One day when he taking a stroll, he accidentally stepped on an ant-hill. The angry ants came out in full strength and stung him to their heart's content. All the while, Ramana did not move from that place. He told his disciples to remain calm. 'I disturbed their peace and I deserve this punishment'
Sri

 

@GeetaKashyap
My dear Geeta

That's what happened to the burly Vasu in The Man-Eater of Malgudi. It was not the physical pain of the tiny mosquito stinging him that made him react the way he did. It was what he perceived as an attack on his ego. Most of us do it when the mosquito drinks a tiny drop of our blood, we hit it with all our strength when a gentle touch would have finished it. Coming to Newton's law, is our killing the mosquito an 'equal' and opposite reaction? Opposite I agree but we cannot term it as equal. This is what the mosquito must be lamenting about on its way to heaven!
Sri

 

@Mistt
My dear Mistt

I hope so too. But we have no records of dogs/cats/other four legged animals dying in road accidents. When humans die in road accidents, we come to know of it from the newspapers next day. This takes us to another point. Of the millions of living beings in the world, only a human dying in unnatural circumstances makes news for us. We worry about animals or birds only if they are our pets. We have some extremely expensive pet-care centers in Chennai. I know guys who spend a fortune on their pets which can feed hundreds of poor children in the slums. It is inequity of the highest order.

Fair enough. My only question is why can't we protect ourselves against mosquitoes without killing them? I don't know if I am being silly!
Sri

 

@shyamala1234
My dear Syamala

An interesting question. The 'No' is even more interesting. I do not know about other countries but non-vegetarian Indians eat only vegetarian animals and birds. They don't eat a dog or cat nor do they eat eagles or vultures. They eat only such beings which will not attack them back. Barring cannibals, no living being eats its own species. They look at far weaker beings for consumption. Haven't we seen lions and tigers chasing deers for food? Nat Geo is full of such tales. I have seen rats being fed to the snakes in the Snake Park here.

Mosquitoes, not all of them though, sting us for their food. We react by killing them with violence. I can imagine a dying mosquito telling its associate, 'I was only having my dinner. Why did he deliver such a fatal blow?' There are many ways to protect ourselves against mosquito bites. But we seem to think extermination of the poor things is the only way. If you compare the number of humans killed by the infection caused by mosquito bites and the number of mosquitoes massacred by humans, the ratio will be one to a billion!

Just because a few people die of rabies caused by dog bites, we don't go about killing all dogs. There are thousands of stray dogs in the street and we are scared of them. But a domesticated dog is like a child for us.
Sri

 

@Thyagarajan
My dear Thyagu

Thanks a lot for this very valuable piece of information. I'll use them in my future interactions with humans in the future.

Well said! It makes me wonder why we do not understand that humans are the biggest anti-ecologists!
Sri

 

@kkrish
My dear kk
Thank you for your understanding.

You never spoke a truer word!
Sri