Pest Control

In spite of the sweltering heat under the low asbestos roof, in spite of the stench of sweat from the workers’ bodies and the mound of soiled work clothes, in spite of the chlorine leaks that eat your lungs and make your throat burn, in spite of the din of the huge compressors raging in the nearby oxygen plant, I must say that there never was one dull moment in the workers’ den of this chemical company I once worked for. What got me thinking about it was the mouse that my brother managed to finally trap in his room last day.

It was “Baby annan” who led that session on pest control. We were all sitting around the big table, on those long steel benches. If you can call them benches or table, because they were just pieces of metal welded together.

“I will tell you how to get rid of rats!”, Baby annan banged on the table with his big hand, all black with ilmenite . He had just returned after replacing a faulty valve in the plant.

“Dig a hole, just big enough for a large aluminium pot. Bury the pot with its mouth barely showing outside the ground. In the evening, leave a piece of ‘onakka meen’ (dried fish) inside. At night, HE will come out of his hole, sniffing left and right.” Baby annan is a master story teller, and we could almost see the rat “coming out of the hole, sniffing left and right” not sure whether to go for our carefully watered kappa/kachil/chena or to go chew up our shoes. It was a HIM, and we almost knew HIM and Baby annan made it so easy for us to hate HIM.

“He would soon find the onakka meen and go into the pot to take it. If the pot is big enough, he will not be able to climb out!”

“Ok, got it. Now we just kill him.”, someone said.

“Mindaadirikkeda mandaa”, (“Shut up, stupid!”)Baby annan rhymed, casually dismissing the intruder, and continued. “Take the pot out in the morning, and leave it in the sun. If necessary, keep shifting it, as the sun moves across the sky. Once in a while, bang the sides of the pot, make faces at him, take an “eerkkil” (twig?) and wiggle at his whiskers, drop burning matchsticks inside at night, do anything, but don’t give him one moment’s peace. Don’t give him anything to eat, but tie a piece of onakka meen to a string and leave it hanging above the mouth of the pot, just out of reach. Do this for five days and let him go.”

Baby annan paused to look at the puzzled faces around him and clarified, “Now, he will go tell all the rats in town,’TRUST ME, DONT EVEN GO NEAR THAT HOUSE!!!’ ”

It is probably a pity that I cant tell most of the jokes I heard in the workers’ den. I recounted the above story just to remind myself how those workers kept themselves happy in spite of their not too enviable surroundings. But if anyone thinks that all these workers do is waste time on trivial things, I will tell you about the kind of shock they gave me, and how ashamed they made me feel. Maybe later….

PS: Curious about the mouse that my brother trapped? He kept it till the evening, tossing an occassional piece of coconut at it (the remainder of the bait). By evening, he became “emotionally attached” to the mouse and decided that it couldn’t be killed. So he took the mouse and the trap on his scooter, rode some distance and set it free!!