Hell hath no fury like what?

The enigmatic woman!

This happened a few days after my marriage. It was around midnight. No, no. This is not my Valentine musings. Far from it. Actually, in the words of Javed Jafri talking about Maggi ketchup, ‘It’s different!’

I had just closed my eyes in deep slumber when I suddenly heard a blood-curdling scream with all the lights on. I rushed out of the bedroom and there saw my wife in a murderous rage with bloodshot eyes. She was armed with a broomstick but for which she would have borne a striking resemblance to Mahishasura Mardhini! For a second, my blood froze beholding this unusual avatar of my wife. Frankly I had no guts to go near her to ascertain the cause for this destructive pose of hers. She stared at me with unseeing eyes and pointed her finger to a corner of the room. There I saw a fully grown cockroach poised for a flight across the room. As I was watching the nasty creature, she pounced on it like the feminine version of Attila, the Hun, and destroyed it in one stroke and went on hitting it even after it attained Sivaloka Prapthi!

I am not ashamed to admit that I am not particularly fond of cockroaches either though I have a healthy respect for them. I have heard some incredible things about them like they have existed on our planet without any change for over 300 million years while humans came to inhabit it some 298 million years later! I believe that it can even survive a nuclear war along with its buddy, the fruit fly! I had come across even a transcript of a conversation between two cockroaches which runs like this:

I do not see why men should be so proud
When insects have a more ancient lineage
Insects were insects
When man only a bubbling whatsit!

I do not think that cockroaches are unduly worried about this murderous feeling of hostility that women feel towards them. They have survived greater hostilities for 300 million years, compared to which a woman wielding a broomstick is just a fleabite for them. They probably even feel that the hands that feed them (with all the kitchen dirt) have the right to kill them too and they are only too aware that they never face any threat of extinction in the hands of women!

I believe that the technical jargon for the fear of cockroaches is ‘Blattodephobia’ but I wonder if it could be called a phobia at all in the first place. If you come across a woman, encountering a cockroach, armed with the most lethal weapons, she resembles more a Zulu warrior than someone in fright! The kind of war cry that precedes the actual massacre of the insect can never emanate from a frightened person. A person frightened of a snake, for example, would rather have someone else carry out the execution of the reptile while watching it from a safe distance. Looking at my wife in action against a cockroach, I would rephrase the famous quote ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ as ‘Hell hath no fury as a woman encountering a cockroach’!

What puzzles me most is that my wife refuses to accept any viable alternative to killing a cockroach. Once when I suggested to her that if she turned the creature over on its back, it would lie immobilized for hours and the maid would dispose it off in the morning, she let me share her murderous look reserved only for the cockroach! But the most awesome scene is enacted only when a flying cockroach is sighted. When a cockroach takes wings, the battle scene will beat what we have seen in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!

It is generally said that a woman is an enigma but her animosity towards a cockroach makes her even more enigmatic!

 

Dear Aishu
You are too scared even to kill them? I must say that my respect for cockroaches has increased now! And your DH. Really poor him ! I am happy to be the DH of a woman who can look the cockroaches squarely in the face, after they are dead of course!
Sri

 

Dear Lalitha
That is the most candid confession that I have seen in recent times. Have you noticed one thing about the anti-cockroach ads in TV? They always show only women as being up in arms against the loathsome creatures! They look as triumphant as Poolan Devi with a can of Hit in their hands. I am sure they too have butterflies in their stomach but they effectively conceal it!
Sri

 

Dear Chithra
Given Vish's predicament, I would have chosen to make peace with the cockroach. A cockroach, all said and done, will never give a peace of its mind however angry! But I am surprised that you are still following a very primitive method for silencing a cockroach. It is only because there is no one to argue their case to be put to sleep with dignity. While cockroach-right activists even argue about the need to hand over a cockroach capital punishment just because humans dont like its face, it is surprising that no one is coming against such violent methods being used to put them to sleep.
From what you say of Vish, I see a bit of Jekyll and Hyde in him!
Sri

 

Dear Chithra
It is generous of you to admit openly that something that scares women to the core is 'no big act' for a man! I am also surprised that a Vedanthi provokes her man to commit such acts and I am even more surprised by the demonic delight that you seem to derive from it! "Just a harsh bang with the chappal"! And further, you seem to imply that it is an act of deliverence!
Sri