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Rats!

I have got along reasonably well with rats. I leave them alone. They leave me alone. During my boyhood, I was not impressed with the Pied Piper of Hamelin. My sympathies were with the rats. At home, an occasional rat or two caught my attention, but I just hoped it would go away. Most times, the rat did, and I was quite happy with that.

But these days, I am more concerned with rats. This is because my teenaged daughter complains of seeing rats everywhere. The housing complex where I live had put up long wooden poles to carry out some much-needed repairs. Several flat owners complained that rats entered their flats via these poles. I guess this was true of my flat too.

Normally, rats restrict their visits to kitchens where they discover different types of goodies to eat. But my daughter complained she saw rats in her bedroom. One of them, according to her, almost crawled on her while she was asleep. Fortunately, she woke up, screamed and rushed to our bedroom.

What was the rat doing in the bedroom? Now my daughter's bedroom is not a model of cleanliness, but despite the clothes, books, cosmetics and other stuff which were strewn about freely, there were no eatables in the room. I have not yet come across instances of rats nibbling at cold cream or lipstick. And in the absence of eatables, how could there be rats in her room?

But my daughter was not convinced. She began to sleep with the lights on and continued to be an unwelcome visitor to our bedroom at all hours of the night. Her complaint was the same. She had seen a rat. We searched the room thoroughly, but there was no sign of any rodent. From Bandra Bazar, I purchased a rat trap for Rs 75 and kept it in the kitchen. The bait was pieces of chappati made in pure ghee.

The exercise was a success. The next morning, there was a visitor inside the rat trap -- a medium-sized, furry being which had finished off all the chappati pieces. The discovery of a rat confirmed our views. There was a rat in the house, but as we had pointed out, it was in the kitchen.

We gazed at the rat for several minutes. What was to be done with it? I had heard of people who drowned captive rats or set them free in front of cats. But we could not bring ourselves to do that. In a way, the rat was quite cute and we did not wish a gory death for it. I asked one of the men working in the building to take the rat trap out and free its occupant some distance away. My only hope was that the rat would not take advantage of our kindness and return to the kitchen.

But my daughter's nervousness continued. She still slept with the lights on, still complained of rats. According to her version, the rat positioned itself near her bed and stared at her! In order to convince her that rats do not inhabit bedrooms, we set the trap in her room. Lo and behold! The next morning, there was a rat inside it!

This was a smaller rodent. We gave the new intruder the same treatment. So far it has not returned. But a couple of days later, my daughter rushed to our bedroom around 3 am and said she had seen a huge, weird-looking worm near the drawing room window. Our sleep disturbed, we got up and looked all over the place. There was no sign of any worm.

My exasperated wife, I hope, has finally discovered the reason behind my daughter's hallucinations. "She never misses the X-Files," my wife pointed out. "And she is also a horror movie addict. Perhaps, that is why she keeps seeing rats and now worms."

As every X-Files addict knows, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are often confronted with weird-looking creatures, which play with the human population of those regions. Most of them are quite nasty and the FBI pair has a tough job dealing with them. The antics of these creatures are shown with sickening realism. Perhaps an overdose of these led to my daughter detecting rats and weird-looking worms.

She agreed there was some logic in this argument. But as she pointed out, she was closely watching Duchovny, not paying much attention to the weird-looking creatures.

I told my daughter about an incident involving an uncle of ours when he was in school. One morning, he complained aloud that the walls in the house were covered with lizards. He started with one, then hiked the figure to five, ten, fifty and finally hundreds. On close questioning, he revealed that he had swallowed some red-coloured seeds that he found in the garden. His parents took him to the doctor, who prescribed a strong purgative to rid of the seeds. By that evening, the lizards on the walls had disappeared. Uncle tucked into a hearty dinner and peace reigned at home.

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