Nandini Tyagi
If you aren’t attractive, you will not understand the itch. By attractive, I mean mosquitoes swarming around you all year round, and by itch, I mean irritating red bumps all over your body. I live in the land of mosquitoes where if you wear black clothes there will be a grey cloud of tiny bugs above your head working towards a common goal: ruining any time you spend outside four walls.
To make me feel a little better about the bites, I was always told I had sweet blood and I was very proud of it. Unlike all those that didn’t attract mosquitoes, I had blood as sweet as honey that all mosquitoes would pine after whereas all others had toxic acid coursing through their veins. I was deluded (delulu if you please) and lied to. At the age of nine, I learned the truth. Having “sweet blood” wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows that I had made it out to be. Year after year, my skin has been tainted by these blood-sucking monsters of the sky- forming rashes and discomfort on a day-to-day basis.
It doesn’t matter if it is the peak summer months of May, the muddy monsoon days of July or the bleak winter months of December: the mosquito attack is unavoidable. Not even the citrusy smell of Citronella oil keeps these pests away. If you also live in a mosquito-infested world, I am a hundred percent sure that your house is also a mosquito-safe space cultivated by your parents. The mosquito-safe drawer includes the essentials, the tried and tested (and probably 25% effective) to save our skin from hellfire. The list is as follows: mosquito spray (preferably Odomos), green mosquito patches (also preferably Odomos), yellow mosquito patches (again, preferably Odomos), a mosquito racket, herbal mosquito repellant spray, mosquito repellent cream, and a mosquito repelling wristband (for the last time, preferably Odomos). This shrine to the mosquito-killing Gods is the biggest scam I have ever faced. Even with every single spray, patch and cream the mosquitoes bite anyway, the bumps come anyway and I am compelled to scratch anyway.
I will wait for the day science will solve my mosquito problem, but in the meantime, I will mislead myself into believing that they swarm after me because I am the best snack on the market.
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