The rodent hunt...

Have you ever been part of a “rat hunt”? I mean, not in any jungle or deep forests. In your own house? Have you tried chasing a rodent away? A big fat one at that? I have witnessed this in my house when I was in class VIII. My father was the protagonist.

It was around 10:00 PM and we had done with our dinner. My siblings and I were sorting our books for the next day school and my father was finishing up with his office work. Unusually, my mom had hit the bed early that night. Both my siblings, my father and I were in the living room of the small but beautiful house in Chennai. My mom was in the bedroom. Suddenly, we saw a creature cross the hall in between my sister’s legs jumping across my brother’s books. When we realized what it was, the screams and the mini-marathons started. My sis climbed up on the sofa; my brother on the dining chair. I was prancing around frantically not knowing where to land. My father got up from the chair and the first thing that he did was - latched the 2 bedrooms and opened the front door. All this he did jumping across the mess of books on the floor, making sure he does not stomp on the poor rat. The sight was hilarious, to say the least. Me being the brat of the house, kept giggling at this sight. I guess that must have irritated my father more.

He took a long, fine stick (an antique asset in the house) and started attacking the rat. I think he first wanted to chase it away via the front door. The rat was going in circles. It would go near the exit and immediately take diversion into the hall again. This happened for about 30 full minutes. Whether the rat was tired or not, my father was absolutely exhausted. Then an idea struck him. He asked me to get the insecticide which is used to kill insects and roaches. I promptly fetched that for him. My siblings were still atop their perch. My father hit the spray fierce fully on the rat. It started moving slowly now but did not give up the race. My father, who had followed non-violence until that night, switched to violence in that one hour. He started poking the rat whenever it went to a corner of the room in its dizziness. In fact, he kept stating “you die, you die…I will kill you…you stupid beast”. All this, made the 3 of us laugh more hysterically. Do you think the rat died? No way!

At this point, the night watchman who does his rounds around this time saw that the lights were on in our house and it was so noisy at that hour. He stepped in to give some unsolicited advice. Very casually, he said “Why don’t you pour water on the rat? Usually rats faint when water is poured on them.” We also like dumb-fools, immediately cleared the floor of our books and brought in buckets of water and splashed on the rat in those odd hours. Whatever little dizziness, the rat had due to the spray, the water-treatment cured that and the rat started running more energetically now.

Finally, after about one and a half hours of violent chase, my father managed to send it out of our house! Phew!! Wait – all was not over! Throughout, there was this soul from the bedroom, which kept asking us what was wrong and why she was locked up. We just said that there is a huge rat and we are chasing it. That was all! When we opened the bedroom at about 11:30 PM…guess what we saw?! There my mom was… shivering and standing on the cot, lest the rat would enter her room!!! That was the best hilarious sight I have seen till this date!

Anyone asking what can a rat do? It can cause a rio(a)t!