Ratatouille..Well Whatever!

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While Priya here struggles with dogs, I have something worse to manage. Rats. On the auspicious occassion of Ganesh chaturthi, when every one looks affectionately at these disgusting creatures, Dear readers, let me go on a rat bashing spree such that any rat which reads this goes and jumps into the toxic waters of the Tapi in shame.

My tryst with rats began back when I was very very young (and while we are at it, in those days, less rotund as well) It was your typical Bengal winter's night and I was sleeping cuddled up next to my mom in this rug with these small finger like extensions on it. Sometime, late in the night one of these fingerlike things must have prodded me and I jumped - and in the shock my mom twisted her neck. My dad had a terrible time trying to control two hysterical people at two in the morning. That rug was promptly put away and named the Chuha rug. It was so ironic that plague broke out in Surat the very next week.


Fast forward to 1999 when a rat came into the house and chased me all over. Thankfully my uncle came over and with one swish of a rod, gave the rat what it deserved. (Any SPCA volunteer reading this may kindly note that I don't give a damn about any comment you are going to make)


This is the worst one of them all. Once a huge rat started coming to our house daily. No matter what we'd do it would just look at us like a dopehead. We really didn't care much thinking that rat...well, was just out of its wits. Until one day it bit me. Yes, Dear readers, in the middle of my beauty sleep, it just came and bit me. Right on my middle finger. With its horrible teeth. Rat saliva dripping and all. And how I ran after that. (If I run at that speed for ten minutes a day, I'm sure I'd lose all my weight)


Anyway, by this time I had a fear of rats placed firmy in my head. So you understand it was quite traumatic when a rat attacked my food parcel inthe hostel, and went scurrying all over my cupboard when I innocently opened the door. Thank god for the Mallus in my block to whom I outsourced the disaster management. Among shouts of Aiyo, Patti, Ividay, Mayri, and a couple of Hindi expletives in true Mallu style the rat never ever came back. Job well done, Mallu bois.
Oh. Mallu mons.
Sorry. Comrades!

Think of the scariest sight you've ever seen. And multiply it by ten raised to ten. That was how I felt recently in the New Delhi Railway Station.

1. The platform was so crowded it was no big deal for a person to fall right off.

2. There was a population density of ten rats per square foot on the tracks.

3. The rats were at least ten times the size of an ordinary one (As someone once rightly said, Delhi makes thim big and the fightercock types)

You think I am exaggerating? This is a conversation me and my cousin Shubha actually overheard



Four year Surdy boy: Pappa yeh kya sher hai?

Middle aged surdy man: Nahi beta yeh to chuha hai. Par beta kood mat jaana hanh? Chaba ke kha jaayega *Growl*
(Well...I do relish a surd joke once in a while. Mean though they are!)



The tip of the iceberg? A couple of weeks back, Surat was as sultry as one of its textile market labourers. The Tapi was farting stench and humidity into the air. Thus it was only natural for an air conitioned bengalooru huduga like me to turn the fan full on, leave the doors open and drift away to sleep with the beatles playing in my room. In the middle of the night I felt a pleasant tickle, and opened my eyes to a rat placed firmly on my belly, innocently saying hello! ( Imagine..A rat that had transgressed my modesty saying hello!) So I gathered whatever little bravery I had and ran to Sandeep's room, pushed him off his bed and slept off.
After patient examination, he told me that there was a real rat in my room, and I had not been hallucinating as all my blockmates who had heard my screams of terror were discussing.


Grishma was supposed to make things better for me. She was supposed to gift me a poster of a cat and one of George Michael. The cat poster was supposed to scare the rats away, and the George Michael poster would help me when I'd croon kissing a fool loudly after a good morning bath. Of course the cow that she is, she conveniently forgot to get me both. So I'm off to Pune to do some poster shopping.



*Sigh*