{"id":2582,"date":"2016-06-12T15:49:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-12T10:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2582"},"modified":"2016-06-12T15:49:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-12T10:19:39","slug":"rats-mumbai-monsoons-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2582","title":{"rendered":"An Ode to Mumbai\u2019s Spirit Animal: The Resilient Rat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ince the day the <\/span>coppersmith barbet <\/span><\/a>was anointed as <\/span>Mumbai\u2019s<\/span><\/a> official bird, I\u2019ve had one nagging question permanently stuck at the back of my mind: What would be the city\u2019s official animal?<\/span>\n\nCould it be the leopard that keeps infiltrating our swanky housing societies and disrupting our idyllic urban lives? The <\/span>stray dog<\/span><\/a>, loved and cursed in equal measure? Or the crow, that\u2019s taken it upon himself to be every <\/span>Mumbaikar\u2019s<\/span><\/a> morning alarm? Come to think of it, if sheer numbers and strength of character are what count, the honour actually needs to go to the humble rat \u2014 all eight varieties of the species that call Mumbai home. <\/span>\n\nYep, we\u2019re talking about the whiskered ball of grime that gets underfoot every time you are shopping at Kalbadevi or navigating a lane in Malvani. The same scurrying creature that grabs more headlines than the <\/span>leopards<\/span><\/a> in Aarey Colony, yet continues to live out its ignominious life in the city\u2019s underbelly. Even as the number of <\/span>BEST buses<\/span><\/a> dwindle by the month, the number of rats staking claim on the city appears to be on the upswing. <\/span>\n\nThis poor rodent has survived innumerable half-hearted Swachh Abhiyaans and celeb-led drives against <\/span>open defecation<\/span><\/a>. It has even braved the bone-rattling underground digging of the city\u2019s entrails while Mumbai upgrades to its ambitious Metro network. At this point, it wouldn\u2019t be wrong to assume that the Mumbai rat is almost invincible. Could it be that while gorging on leftovers, it\u2019s also imbibed some of the famous <\/span>Mumbaikar spirit<\/span><\/a>?<\/span>\n\nTheir utter domination on our lives is evident from the fact that Mumbai is the only city in the world that <\/span>employs<\/span><\/a> full-time Night Rat Killers (NRK) to exterminate a whopping population of 88 million rats. But despite the army of NRKs cracking down on these rodents in stealth every night, there\u2019s nothing stopping these rats from frequently making headlines.<\/span>\n\n\n

I think the Mumbai rat has proved, more than his human counterpart, that he is a Mumbaikar to the core.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nMumbai\u2019s doomed affair with rats go back a long way. It\u2019s assumed that the first species arrived as stowaways on Dutch or Portuguese ships, slyly mingling with the native population. However, it was only in the <\/span>winter<\/span><\/a> of 1896 that the city sat up and took note of these brand new inhabitants. It was the year the great plague beset Bombay, killing nearly two lakh people. <\/span>\n\nKalpish Ratna\u2019s <\/span>Room 000<\/span><\/i><\/a> that documents the gruesome spread of the plague and its aftermath evokes a disturbing picture of these rats. \u201cDead rats began to rain into houses.\u00a0Women ran out screeching when fat bundles tumbled into simmering pots on the hearth. Men woke up at all hours uneasily aware of stirring that had nothing to do with desire. It was usually a dying rat burrowing frantically into the bedclothes. Toddlers chased after rodents that staggered drunkenly about. Children devised cruel and interesting games of torment.\u00a0The street stank of putrefying rats. The disgusted villagers had tired of clearing them: within an hour of sweeping away the corpses, there would be a fresh richesse of rats, twitching in their death throes. A few days later, plague broke out\u2026\u201d<\/span>\n\nAccording to official figures, over a lakh rodents have been killed in civic drives in the first three months of 2018. In 2016 and 2017, the <\/span>BMC <\/span><\/a>stunned, clubbed and chemically killed a little over two lakh rats annually. If Mantralaya itself was said to harbour 3,19,400 rats in its hallowed corridors, would the congested alleys of Bhuleshwar and the bylanes of Kurla lag far behind? Considering that we are a city whose USP is overpopulation (humans or otherwise), naturally these numbers hardly bother us for we\u2019ve openly embraced rats as a legitimate part of Mumbai imagery.<\/span>\n\nIn the last few months, the now emboldened <\/span>Mumbai<\/span><\/a> rat stepped out of the shadows for its share of gory glory; he had tasted blood. Back in December, two patients in a suburban hospital had the misfortune of having their toes and eyes chewed on by rats. Just last fortnight, a rat found its way into another suburban hospital and chewed on the eyes of a comatose patient. If that wasn\u2019t enough, in March,<\/span> the scam of the month<\/span><\/a> starred our humble rats. \u201c<\/span>How can you eliminate 31.68 rats per minute?,\u201d asked Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse, unearthing a scam <\/span>that pointed fingers at unscrupulous contractors who claimed to have exterminated over three lakh rats in Mantralaya in a matter of seven days. And, yet it\u2019s clearly not enough. They will emerge, triumphant, in the <\/span>monsoon<\/span><\/a> and teach us all about leptospirosis giving enough material for the newspapers to be filled with statistics of infections and preventions.<\/span>\n\nI think the Mumbai rat has proved, more than his human counterpart, that he is a Mumbaikar to the core. He\u2019s got it all \u2013 the die-hard spirit, the indifference to unhygienic surroundings, the apathy to the din of construction and an immune system that quaffs anything edible, and lives to tell the tale. Above ground level, the human Mumbaikar may routinely crib and threaten to leave the city and its squalor but the subterranean Mumbaikar merely chuckles and looks forward to the debris of the next demolition drive that will bring additional housing and <\/span>food<\/span><\/a> for the next few months.<\/span>\n\nThe rats also know us rather well. It knows that we will not stop littering which gives them the confidence to continue procreating. At this rate, the humble rat might just outlive all of us to earn the tag of the \u201cUltimate <\/span>Mumbaikar<\/span><\/a>\u201d in the future. Considering that they\u2019ve been fighting extinction for over a 100 years and still emerged victorious against 10 million of us, it makes a lot of sense. \u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The humble rat has proved that he is a Mumbaikar to the core. He\u2019s got it all \u2013 the die-hard spirit, the indifference to unhygienic surroundings, the apathy to the din of construction and an immune system that quaffs anything edible, and lives to tell the tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2583,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3642,19,5247,80,5248,5249,5250,5251,5252],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animals","tag-bmc","tag-india","tag-monsoons","tag-mumbai","tag-night-time-killers","tag-pest-control","tag-rat-scam","tag-rats","tag-resilient-rats"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Ode to Mumbai\u2019s Spirit Animal: The Resilient Rat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The humble rat has proved that he is a Mumbaikar to the core. 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