How to Keep Mosquitoes Away During Monsoon Season
Last July my neighbour Salim bhai knocked on my door at 10 at night looking genuinely miserable. His four-year-old had been bitten so badly that both arms were covered in welts. He'd tried two different mosquito coils, the plug-in liquid vaporiser, and a cream his mother had recommended. Nothing was working well enough. The child couldn't sleep. I asked him one question: "Tumhara cooler ka tray khali kiya aaj?" He stared at me. He hadn't emptied it in a week. We went together, emptied the tray, scrubbed it out, dried it. Found a small amount of standing water in the base tray of a potted plant on the balcony. Emptied that too. Checked the bathroom bucket — sitting full, unchanged, for three days. Three breeding sites. Inside his own flat. Feeding the mosquitoes that were biting his son every night. This is what monsoon mosquito control actually looks like in Indian homes. Not coils versus vaporisers. Not which repellent cream is best. It's almost always about...