18 October,2023 08:08 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
Which species must humans fear more than humans themselves? The tiny, measly mosquito. Representation Pic
Also, because cats don't care when they hear this. Who is man's worst enemy? This is an easy question.
It's man himself - since the birth of man, cannibalising each other, over self-absorbed issues, chiefly money, sex, and land (âjar, joru, zameen'); greed and ego, essentially. Self-destruction is in our screwed-up DNA.
That said, as per a blog post by Bill Gates, humans annually kill 475,000 humans, in wars, murders, etc. Which species must humans fear more than humans themselves? The tiny, measly mosquito, by far - killing 725,000 humans, a year! Transmitting malaria, dengue, and the like.
Of course, this war between humans and mosquitoes is as old as fuzzily recorded history - with the unnoticeable fly often held responsible for much, from the fall of ancient Roman Empire, to the death of Alexander, the Great. Disease, like death, is anyway a human leveller.
But you'd think, over millennia, we would've figured out ways to tame a species the size of a human nostril? It sounds like USA vs Vietnam, therefore, when you hear recent proclamations/reports, notably by
The New York Times global health correspondent, Stephanie Nolen, that in this seemingly unequal war: "The Mosquitoes Are Winning."
In short, in rural Africa, for instance, the number of deaths from malaria had nearly halved from a million a year, 20 years ago, to about 550,000, by 2015. Mosquitoes, in time, had learnt to overcome the human defence, through insecticides, repellents, bed nets, etc, and were mercilessly giving it back.
But that's not all. A new fellow showed up. This ultra-competent, all-weather malaria-mosquito that can seemingly survive everything is called Anopheles stephensi. Docs find it hard to pronounce her name.
The pronoun for the deadly summer insect, mostly breeding on stagnant water/waste, is always she/her. Only female mosquitoes bite to obtain human blood/protein, in order to lay eggs, passing around viruses/parasites, thereby. Anopheles stephensi, colloquially, Steve, is now turning malaria into an urban African ailment.
Killing Steve is a migrant into Africa. From where? South Asia. Namely, (urban) India-Pakistan. The difference between which is only in our small brains, not in their agile, non-discriminatory drone warfare.
Nature would've ideally left humans alone, to mark brainless distinctions, and harm each other, that they're good at, anyway.
Including damaging nature itself, and then becoming activists to save the planet. As if the planet needs any saving. It'll carry on.
Maybe the frickin' mosquito is just the little joke to show humans their place? As it buzzes into the ears at night, blasting us off the bed - striking it blindly across the room, with no rest/respite on the battlefield. Whoever wins, you've lost sleep: "Ek macchar, saala, ek maccharâ¦"
To be fair, this isn't personal. No more than how humans unwittingly spread the corona virus amongst themselves. Of the 3,000 mosquito varieties, I'm told, only 100 bite humans - all of them equally, though?
Hell, no! Surely, you've been furiously scratching your elbows, ankles, in public places, while other blokes sit around, as if they were under mosquito nets.
In my case, I've sadly figured, with scientific proof, that "beer ingestion significantly stimulates mosquito attraction." And I love beer. Mosquitoes and I say cheers, always, hanging out together! There could be other reasons they go after you.
As you can tell, I'm no medical expert, hence throwing no Google diagnoses or dos and don'ts. But what if a lizard or cockroach entered your room - let's watch you freak out. Both are non-confrontational. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, will kill you.
A tiger sends instant shivers. They care for human flesh only when they get too old to hunt better. We don't taste that good, apparently.
Click on movies that prey on audience's mortal fears - say, the shark gobbling swimmers in undies. Who was the last person you knew dying like that? And even if they did, what were they doing in that water, anyway.
Switch over to horror flicks. When have you actually seen a ghost to fear them so much? Okay, don't start with those stories!
The housefly in Eega (2012) that made director SS Rajamouli's career is the super-villain that feels most real. Only, that it's a sophisticated wasp. Not a mosquito, debilitating people (with high-grade fevers, nosediving platelet counts, etc), plus killing 7,25,000, every year.
Which still feels like a distant statistic, when I find myself around a cousin, down with dengue, at the same time as a colleague. With my mom, hit by malaria, simultaneously, with my dad groaning under a dengue-type virus. And I've caught dengue twice, in less than a year - there are two more variants to go!
All of it from a minibeast you can barely see, as it hops around you, at a restaurant, bar⦠I notice one, I just wanna rate that damn place low, and leave.
We can't really fight that monster-insect, over a drink/meal, or place a microscope to tell their striped legs (Aedes, dengue), smooth legs (Anopheles, malaria), from harmless legs.
We stay. I pretend to not care. What if a deranged man walked in, hiding weapons, into that restaurant/bar. You can't predict what he's carrying, or who he'll attack. Would you still stick around? Hah! Kinda the same thing, no?
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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