Termite Terrorism!

So my room has been invaded with white ants!!!! I'm so supremely annoyed! I didn't go to work and spent all day in a daze just packing about half my room and supervising workers!!!! Cartons and cartons of books and albums. All my lights, my AC, the TV, the computer - all had to be removed as an entire wall - with a cement sheet, a wooden beam framework were eaten and sawn off, leaving only the iron foundation. The bathroom had been stripped bare of possessions the night before.

It all started about a few months ago when my mother noticed white ants falling from the light above my bathroom basin. We had the bathroom sprayed and in the subsequent days, I still saw a few white ants falling, getting washed away - so I just thought it was the spray still working.

The morning was spent with my mom frantically calling various agencies - the architect, the pest control, the plumber, the electrician, the building society contractor - we found out that at least 5-10 houses in our society on various floors and buildings have been affected. (and my room had been renovated only a couple of years ago!) It was amazing watching the contractors just knock about randomly on walls and know if they'd been infested or not, and to trace the arms (they move along a specified pathway only) to a particular source. One house in my building found white ants had tunnelled a pathway under their marble flooring and they had to rip even that open!!! We found a cluster stopped just short of my library/storage cupboard (thank God). They would have destroyed the books, though they eat neither paper nor cardboard. It was fascinatingly gross to watch them. We found out that white ants usually orginate from a HUGE mother ant about 10 metres under the ground, usually at a relatively great distance from the place being infested. Don't believe me? See.

Gross no???? Yukkkkkkk.

More info on white ants/termites here.

My poor mother was in tears at the financial loss, not to mention a new mental crisis - as if she didn't have enough on her hands with my sister's wedding - and the electrician consoled her (!) by saying that there's a Gujju saying that goes "Jya vadhe, tya Udhay" meaning "Where prosperity increases, only there do white ants strike" Good Malthusian equalising economic force of nature I must say! (Not that any more money has been made - I wish!!!!) I suppose this supposedly wise and apocryphal idiom probably has its roots in some good commonsensical observation - that people who prosper tend to redo their houses using materials that reflect their newfound financial status - hence using materials that the wealthy use - meaning more high-maintenance, delicate material, to make it appear more sophisticated. The room of my childhood was simple, with formica all over, which was easy to clean. I suppose my parents just got a whole lot more than they bargained for when they decided to make a room to reflect my 21 year old sensibility - something supposedly mature and chic in teak and gypsum. Oh well. Such is life.

So a very hot day indeed was spent... and man, by lunchtime I was half asleep! So a regular ordinary lunch, of hot crispy bhakri lightly touched with ghee, jaggery, khatti kadhi and muth was very much welcomed! I normally get light, easy-to-handle lunch at work - mostly 'fancy' food like noodles or a baked dish, so eating something soooo reeking of simple home-made goodness almost moved me to tears. I ate 4... more than Ive ever eaten at one go!

I was initially annoyed that I had to take a day off from work just to kinda follow her around and ignore her yells at me as I made a few calls for her, and not be allowed to actually do any work - ie. lift and move things on my own which was much faster than my having to wait for someone else to come and do it. Later she told me she had needed me for 'moral' support. Just so I was there. Women (including me I suppose) are funny and silly and sweet! Boys, remember this, its the thought that counts!!! She started crying on the phone to my dad who is out of town, and asked him to call her every day. I was soo touched. That here is someone you can turn to for anything. It just showed a vulnerable, childlike dependent side of my mother, the iron woman, that i don't get to see often.

Dinner was soup salad and cheese toast. Healthy, light and yum. Welcomed an evening shower after the dust that creeps into every pore. And was VERY glad I had oiled my hair in the morninf - the dust had made my scalp so dry and itchy that oiling gave it immediate relief. I am determined to oil it once a week now - after all it is a natural conditioner!!!

Dont you love the impressions words give? 'Udhay' (as opposed to Uday or sunlight or progress or something) with its soft sounds, evokes an image of a hazy cloud of white ants, a dusty, translucent, buttermilk mist. The way 'beauty' with its combination of words, just evokes an intense, bejewelled brilliance. Splendid - evokes curtains and panels and galas. Ooooh. Can you think of other words?