Vellore Ramabhadran (1929 - 2012)

Sogasuga mridanga taalamu
Jatagurci ninu sokkajeyu dheerudevvado

The Battle of Ganpath Apartments

I have been battling rats for a few days, and various people have advised me variously.
***

 "The good old grandfather rat trap, nothing works like it."
(I live with my grandfather, so I have an actual grandfather rat trap.)

"Mortein Rat Kill."
(Clean and easy. Hmmm.)

"You know that thing.... That sticky sheet with Tom and Jerry cartoons on it?"
(Oh god. No. I don't want to scrape the rat off it afterwards.)

"In a rat trap, you must put a masala vadai."
(Why don't I open a branch of Karpagambal inside the trap for good measure?)

"This Mortein is very tame, da. There's this thing called Shakti Get Out. That can even kill you if you're not careful."
(Shakti Get Out. Oh man. This looks promising. Actually, it looks like a flattened ellurundai. Noxious only.)

"You think it's in a cupboard, you say? Hmmmm. Open the cupboard, find it and hit it repeatedly with a heated iron rod."
(That will make sure it's not cold-blooded anymore.)

"When you use Mortein Rat Kill, make sure you leave one exit open somewhere. Once I came back from some travels and had to scrape off a dead rat from my floor with a spoon."
(Dude, really. Did you have to tell me that?!)

"Rats breed very quickly. A kill in time saves fourteen."
(Oh fuck. I've delayed it for three days now!)


"Saar, I will give you the most important advice. You can put tengai and nei in the rat trap, you can put masala vadai... But the one that will work the best is NV. I had a bhai neighbour in my old house. He told me this. Find some NV neighbour, put the rat trap in the room in which the rat is, leave the NV in it, close all doors and give it ten minutes. That's all. You have your rat."
(NV in this house! Siva, siva. My thatha will catch me in a rat trap next.)

"Dip whatever you have left in the trap in coffee decoction. In our households, we get only Brahmin rats."
(Oh, that's why it was collecting all that string. To make itself a poonal.)

"I have the number of this pest control guy. It'll cost you a couple of grand. But he'll do a clean job."
(For a couple of grand, I'll do a clean job.)

"It's all about strategy, brother. Guerrilla warfare. You are the Mughal emperor. The rat is Shivaji. You have to understand how it strikes, where it strikes, when it strikes. Only then can you beat it. Don't underestimate your foe, like the Mughals did."
(My problem is that I overestimate it, really.)

"Can you claim the damage caused by the rat as a deduction under Chapter IV?"
(Hmmmm. Current repairs? Or Section 37? This is an interesting legal issue.)

"In these hard times, it is crucial that you are brave."
(Hum honge kaamyaab, I say to myself, repeatedly. Hum honge kaamyaab.)

"Your fan stopped working? Dude, this might be a flying mutant rat."
(Or a bat.)

"Once you catch the rat in the trap, don't kill it. Release it in the wild."
(Guindy Snake Park?)

"Killing a caught rat... Hmmmm. That's an art form."
(Yeah. We'll demonstrate it at the Modern Art Gallery.)

"Tie it to a rope, and beat it incessantly."
(The blood will spurt all over, its insides will be outside. That grisly mix of flesh, blood and bone. Tempting.)

"The most painless way to kill a rat once you've caught it is to pour boiling water on it. Squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak and its gone!"
(It's not really gone, is it? There's a boiled rat carcass right there for you to dispose.)

"Make sure you don't have to scrape it off the floor with a spoon."
(Don't remind me of that image repeatedly, da. Please.)

"The rat might go, but it's soul will live on. Community memory, brother. They will remember your house. They will seek revenge. They will fight to reclaim their land."
(Thank you for those words of encouragement.)

***
Really, thank you all for being so supportive. The Family was exterminated yesterday. Two adults and four kids in all. The house feels like my own again. Now to par-tay.