Flocking Parasites

Parasitism invades the society,
While most get impunity,
Only mosquito gets the blame.
Pointless to spend the money,
Unless the issue is put into planner's frame.

Dhaka has long been a city of parasites. Mosquito is perhaps the most annoying one and gets the most blame. Hardly any evening left when mosquitoes do not swoop on bare parts of the body. As the night gets deeper, the mosquito problem becomes unbearable. Overcrowded Dhaka, unhygienic lifestyle of its residents and little care to the surroundings are equally responsible for worsening of the problem.As the night gets deeper , the mosquito problem becomes unbearable. Overcrowded Dhaka, unhygienic lifestyle and little care to the surroundings are equally responsible for the worsening of the problem. People from all the corners of Bangladesh thronged into Dhaka and amplify the problem of clogged drains, shrinking canals and disappearance of lakes. Swampy lands only turn into breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Though city corporations employ all the arsenals they possess to fight this buzzing evils, no mean turns effective to give relieve Dhaka residents from this blood-sucking nightmare. To my surprise, I discover that even inside my mosquito net mosquitoes outside the net behaving like zombies desperately try to enter inside the net. I have never seen such all-out-effort from the mosquitoes before.

Affluent families could easily afford to take all the steps including buying foreign anti-mosquito gadgets and mosquito repellent, but those reside in slum and those fall in lower-income group have little means to protect themselves from the unstoppable zeal of mosquitoes. Imagine the pain the kids of these families endure while studying or housewives have to go through while cooking or doing other household work.

I encounter a news report claiming number of culex mosquitoes quadrupled in recent weeks. I do not want to embark on blame shaming. Anti-mosquito programs run by city corporations smoke the mosquitoes into houses. An incessant and annoying song hangs in the room till the dawn break. Few years ago, I encountered a video on social media. In that video a city corporation employee of a suburb is seeing fighting mosquito with a fogger machine on the back of a pickup truck like a medieval chariot-riding warrior.

That is not all. Dhaka South City Corporation few years ago released Guppi fish into the drainage system. The fish lives on mosquito larvae. Little progress has been made in subduing the mosquito in spite of all the efforts.

Thanks to mosquito, mosquito aerosol and coil publicity flourishes the media. Even these goods are not enough to contain the mosquitoes.

I have heard that male mosquitoes exposed to a little bit of radiation comes very handy in the fight against mosquitoes. It stops the procreation process. When the male mosquito meets the female counterpart, the female lost its ability to produce eggs. Could we somehow go for this approach?

Last year I read a news report that revealed that part of the sanctioned money for buying pesticide was embezzled. Result was lesser amount of pesticides available to fight mosquito. Amazing! Parasites come to rescue other parasites! In the animal kingdom "birds of a feather flock together". In this parasite-infested society we see that parasites flock together too.

Parasitism has been taking a virulent form in our society. It is pretty natural to see too many swarms of mosquitoes lingering over our head. They are just offshoot of a bigger problem. Focusing on the smaller problem like mosquito eschewing the bigger ones will not bring drastic change.

Development planners , policymakers formulated policies intended to improve people's lives, but they had reckoned without the parasites invading our society and eating our resources. Imprudent spending only swells their number in our society. Parasitic activity only gives trouble to us. Trouble caused by mosquito is conspicuously visible. But others remain subtle, hard to detect.So no complaint against the mosquito next time!