Me and My Roommates

It probably gives one the impression that I live a rather solitary life sans company in my home at Suryapet. It isn’t an entirely lonely existence because I have lots of roommates sharing my living space. Living with me in my house are several representatives from the insect kingdom, a couple of reptiles, birds even (chicken actually) and a few species of the four legged kind. When I am in my office or traveling to villages my roommates stay back and look after my house whether I ask them or not. It helps that I am an entomologist by qualification or it would have been quite difficult to be in the company of so many insects especially of the eight legged variety- the spiders.

I share my house with so many spiders that sometimes I get scared that one fine morning I’d wake up and find I’ve turned into Spiderman (which isn’t such a bad thing considering how happy my kid would be to find his dad doing feats.) The spiders are everywhere, in all corners in the two rooms of my house, the bathroom and under the tables, shelves and even behind doors. With so many spiders for company one thing that occupies a large chunk of my morning time is clearing cobwebs that seem to appear overnight. I leave my sandals in a corner after my evening walk and a couple of hours later getting ready to go out for dinner I find a spider has already spun a web inside and having its own dinner.

After spiders my other roommates include two different armies of ants. One set, the red ants, marches all over the floor and the walls during the day time. The other set of black ants takes over in the night. Since I sleep on a mat on the floor I’m regularly woken up by a couple of persistent ants trying to explore the insides of my ears. Try as I might I cannot locate the spot from where these ants come from. Though I do not have any eatables in my room the ants turn up quite regularly everyday. Of course there are mosquitoes though it is not mosquito season now. I keep them at bay using mosquito repellants Vidya Balan so cheerfully advertises on television. If only these models in insect repellants ads know how poisonous the products are the smiles would vanish from their faces in a flash.

Mercifully I don’t have flies and rats for company. Suryapet is the cleanest municipality in the state so it means there are almost no flies. Recently I discovered that two large lizards had moved in while I was away at Shimla. They scurry across the walls for no reason. It is rather disconcerting to find a large, dark lizard clinging to the ceiling directly above you which is the first thing I see on opening my eyes in the morning. Since they seem reluctant to move out I can only tolerate them and hope they don’t have any ideas of dropping on my head without warning.

A hen wanders into my room every morning, coming in through one door and going out of another. I’m sitting reading and the hen doesn’t even bother but looks around before stepping out. The owner has acquired a black puppy with a bent ear and a drooping tail. It too drops in at least once a day as if to check out on me. Occasionally a horde of monkeys jumps into the corridor on their way to some other place.

In the villages it is the crowing of a rooster that wakes up the people. In my case the wakeup call happens to originate from a buffalo. The only neighbor of mine I haven’t seen is this buffalo that wakes me up with deep and loud bellows. It doesn’t calm down until it is given its food. These are my roommates and my neighbors who make my stay at Suryapet enjoyable in their own unique way.