By Jane De Suza
A bout of malaria hit my family when I was little and provoked the mutter, ‘Must be the monsoon – those mosquitoes!’
Later in college, I came out with a violent rash of red spots. ‘Must be the stagnant water – those mosquitoes!’
Now, as ‘those mosquitoes’ spread panic, along with dengue, chikungunya and a host of other scary diseases, I exclaim with sudden insight, ‘Must be Noah – those mosquitoes!’
If you think about it, he’s the guy responsible. ‘Hey,’ he shouted when those gorgeous gazelle and waddling warthogs walked up the ramp in twos. ‘Hey, Pokey and Chewy, fly in quick. The ship’s about to sail.’ So those mosquitoes joined the queue, and the rest is (bible) history.
Why couldn’t Noah keep those mosquitoes out? He’d have earned the Nobel prize for medicine long before Alfred Nobel was even born. He’d have saved the world and millions from suffering, squirming and scratching. But he let them in with the same love he showed the lovely long-lashed camels or the limber long-necked swan.
And then, that wily old, white-bearded man sent me a message, across the centuries. Two messages, actually. Because, of course, he sent everything in twos.
‘Firstly,’ he bellowed, ‘Who are you to judge those mosquitoes?’ Along with the loyal loving dogs and the majestic lions among people I know – those of grace and beauty and integrity, are those back-stabbers, the mosquitoes – we all know many of them. Those whose words jab and whose actions hurt for no other reason, but to hurt. God knows (and God really does) why the world has them. Perhaps because we aren’t put here to judge? Perhaps there are people who hurt us because they know no other way, perhaps to feed their own families? Perhaps even, we ourselves play the gazelle to some, and the mosquito to others?
‘Secondly, the mosquitoes,’ confided Noah, ‘were much less dangerous than the mosquadrotchos.’ These are imaginary creatures (okay, admittedly, out of my own imagination) who suck out eyeballs and fingernails and internal organs. ‘Gosh,’ we’d all soon be crying,’ just let us have those mosquitoes back, who only sucked a drop of blood.’ That’s the learning, really, from old Noah. We have no idea what he saved us from and what he kept away. As we have no idea every time misfortune strikes, how much worse we’re being spared. Do we really count the bus that didn’t hit us, the germ that didn’t infect us, the hot coffee that didn’t spill on us? We’re usually living one step higher and safer from the worst that could happen.
It’s time to thank those mosquitoes then, right? Along with good old Noah. Mostly, because he let the most dangerous species of all in, with the warmest welcome of all – he let us humans join his ark.
Jane De Suza is a humour writer, columnist and advertising creative director; and author of the novels, Happily Never After, The Spy who lost her Head and the best selling SuperZero series for children. She is an alumna of Sophia College, Mumbai and XLRI, Jamshedpur.