Biodiversity in Manipal

It was late in the afternoon that I reached Manipal. I quickly scouted the school of communication, met the Director and told her that I am looking for the syllabus and curriculum of the courses. She was busy. So got an appointment for the next day and came out, just before the offices started closing down. A sigh of relief.

But rain clouds were gathering. I had to wash my clothes. And I needed a bath myself. Looked around for the cheapest place nearby. A lady running a shop gave me precise directions.

Annapoorna. The roomrates displayed behind the counter was inviting for my pocket: 200 rupees for a room with attached bath for 24 hour occupancy. The man behind the beaten down counter handed me the key and gestured that I should go up – 2^nd floor, room 55, he said.

What? No signing and stuff? No advance?

He said that I should go and check out the room first.

No wonder. The place was in shambles. The walls of balconies and exposed areas were mostly dark green with dried up moss and fungus of many years.

But there was a narrow bed, fan, light and attached bathroom with running water. I took it.

Nice view. A nice peepal tree outside the window next to bed, offering home to vanda and other epiphytes on its extensive trunks. Nice pleasant breeze blowing from the window on the other side. Not a single occupant on the second floor. Skyline hidden by trees with dark green leaves and yellow flowers. Rusty shield bearer? I couldn’t guess at that distance.

Washed clothes, stretched to relieve the tense muscles, smoked a cigarette and offered gratitude to the universe for giving me this delight. I wasn’t this comfortable and relaxed when I stayed for a week in a 7 star hotel in Brunei, I thought, before I sat down to write.

Writing with a pen is different from writing with a keyboard.

While writing different kinds of  insects tried to distract me. One had lost a wing and landed on the table. It was going round and round in more or less the same spot. I am all for biodiversity and ignored the side-reels of life.

Had “meals”in a restaurant nearby, meditated, offered prayers and my list of boons to the universe, switched off the light and went to bed.

My feet were itching. So were my hands. Previous night I had spent in a roomful of mosquitoes. I strained to hear their familiar songs. No mosquitoes.

Something was crawling up my chest and something else on my neck. 

Bugs! It hit me. I shot up and hit the light switch. Some thirty or forty spots on the bed disappeared in a flash. I flicked off one from my neck. It fell on the ground. Pretended to be dead. I used my thumb nail to squish it. Smelt it.. Only after I did this confirmatory test did I see similar marks on the floor, on the wall – human blood sucked by bedbugs.

I pulled my wet clothes from the line, closed the door and ran down. I was itching all over by this time.

Bedbugs! I croaked to the receptionist.

You are checking out? He asked.

Yes! I can’t stay here. The bed is full of bugs. You should use some Flit or something, I said.

He nodded and smiled and handed me the balance.

I ran, scratching myself. Mosquitoes are alright. I had been going off to sleep to their lullabies in my childhood. And in my adulthood offered my share of donation of blood for the sake of my little winged sisters’ survival. But bugs? Eeeks.

I remembered a night when we were woken up by a swarm of cockroaches. Spewing out of the bathroom drain, they invaded our sleeping area on the floor - in hoards, waking us up in the middle of night. I spent about half an hour massacring the periplanata with my chappal. My son thought I was brave.

Brave? I was frightened by bugs. A firm believer in biodiversity? I would vote for extermination of the species from the planet.

I checked into another cleaner but costlier place. But could not go off to sleep. My body was hot with all that histamine under the skin. And had a headache out the next day.

With Kasturba Medical college, Pharmacy college and a Nursing college nearby and the thousands of learned people all around, sucking the blood and sweat of poorer, less educated people, bed bugs should not really bug me. If I can donate blood to mosquitoes, why not to bugs?

Thathasthu. I am at peace.