Cohabiting

#MyThursdayThing

After 5 weeks of regular writing I missed #mythursdaything, last week. When I set out on this Thursday commitment, I knew a gap would come once in a while. But it came sooner than I expected. Let me start by saying to those who were waiting for it: I am sorry. However, the good news is that it wasn’t laziness that led to the break in momentum. I had a valid reason, which was that I got stung on my leg by a wasp. It was so bad and painful that for 3 days I was completely down. The sting was so strong that it led to mild fever and the anti-allergy tablets led to drowsiness. The result—I wasn’t able to write or paint or do anything much.

My house has balconies on three sides and come spring time, wasps and honey bees all start hovering around and building their hives. While the honey bees like the plants, which I have in plenty and look for the back of the leaves to start building from, the wasps go into the funniest of corners. I found them inside the AC, and inside the cooler’s water tank. Then once I found them in a wire opening in the roof of the room. I even found them in the side gaps of the balcony door. They are on all sides of the house and in all corners.  They just fly in and out of the house as if they own it. 

Earlier we would use the mosquito racquet to stun these wasps unconscious and throw them outside. Then I realised it was not appropriate and stopped attacking them. We made peace with their existence. We would just try and stay away from their way and if they came in our way we would use a broom or a newspaper to show them the door.

The honey bees, on the other hand, did not disturb us at all, barring making their hives on our plants and attacking if we tried to water them. Largely, though, I found my way around it by avoiding hitting their homes directly with the spray and sneakily water the pot.

All was okay till the wasps made their hive in my studio and the honey bees chose the lemon plant in my balcony where I sit and meditate and sometimes have my evening tea. Whenever in the morning I would take my seat, the honeybees would start hovering around. They were scared and disturbed by me and I was scared and disturbed by them. Cutting the leaves, shifting the plant, shifting my seat—I tried everything and then gave up. I mentioned this incident to my friend, telling him how I behaved like a real estate person by displacing the bees and breaking their dwelling. He mentioned how I am missing the opportunity to get organic honey by doing so. Honey or not, I just wanted my plants and balcony to be accessible to me. The dilemma was sorted when one day a monkey came to the scene and then when he was bitten by the bees, in his pain and anger he broke a couple of pots and also destroyed the hive. No honey bees since then.

No such luck with the wasps, however. I had to remove the hive from my studio and a few more corners and I am sure they did not like it… I let the ones away from me be—don’t come in my way and I won’t come in yours. But is life that simple? One evening last week, I was watering my plants. It was beginning to get dark and I was also on a video call with my friend who had just bought her first ever car. Suddenly around the same lemon plant, I felt a prick on my leg. I jumped a bit and shirked it away mistaking it as a thorn from the lemon plant. Little did I know that I had been stung by a wasp. I totally ignored the sting on day 1. I did not rub the area with iron (they say it helps remove the sting). I did not have an anti-allergy either. Next morning, I went for a walk and put my poor legs to some 8 kms of exercise only to come home in a lot of agony. I took a look at my leg—ugly, red and swollen. I knew the wasp had had its revenge for the hive that I had removed from my studio. Rest is history. It took 3 days of ointments and anti-allergy medicines to get back to normal.

The thought that this episode left me with was, who was in the right? The honey bees making their hive just on that very spot where I sit or the wasps making their hive right inside my studio? Or me trying to protect myself and my sister from their stings and all the pain. Who has the first right over these places?

In our homes, in the cities, in our villages, the fight is always around this. Who has the first right over the land, the resources etc. In the forests however, everyone exists together, they cohabit and the food chain also works in harmony. In our cities and homes however, both of us are in unnatural surroundings—the bees and us. And so we fight for the survival and our right to passage.

Currently in our home, all places outdoor are doubly checked before we stand or lean over them or water plants to avoid any more stings. Inside the house, however, we are still stuck with the question, To bee or not to bee?

©Shubhra
#6  July 9th, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.