Smoke machines..!
Robert Clements
Friday, December 17, 2010 - My dogs were behaving strangely this morning. They ran into my bedroom, jumped on the bed and wanted to get as close as possible to me.
I knew the reason, the municipal man with the mosquito fog machine, was somewhere in the vicinity and soon smoke would be all over my house, which quite frightened my two canines. I remembered the call last month, “Bob, I know somebody in the municipality, they will see to it that our mosquitoes are driven away!”
“How?” I’d asked. “They will send a man with the machine and soon we will be mosquito free!” They’d been sending the machine, the man, and his smoke for the last four weeks, but I hadn’t yet seen a drop in my mosquito bites! As I heard the sound of the machine today, and felt the dogs next to me, I recollected a conversation I’d had with a friend who’d joined a pest control firm. His firm had got a government contract, to spray public transport buses before they left the terminal. “We quoted so low!” he chuckled, “That they had to give it to us, and our rates also include all the commissions we have to hand out!”
“But how will you do the job at such a low rate?” I asked, “Yes it is,” he admitted, “But we won’t be using it!” “No?” “No,” he chuckled, “We’ll just be using kerosene!” Many years ago while directing plays in the city, a machine I used a lot was the smoke machine. It created a lot of smoke on stage and gave the effect of something supernatural or ethereal happening.
And that is the smoke machine I see used all over the country. This morning I read about the bomb blast in Varanasi! Why? Don’t we have our intelligence machinery? Police officers who are supposed to gather information? After the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, America has never had a bomb blast! How is that possible except for the fact that their mosquito machines are really doing their work, while ours just create an illusion! Our IAS officers, policemen and the rest of our bureaucracy have built such a smoke screen around themselves, that it’s nearly concrete. It’s time the media and we people start looking beyond the smoke, and seeing what lies behind: Rot and filth!
I look at my poor dogs, trembling on my bed, and I feel like leaning across and telling them, “It’s only a lot of smoke, not enough to kill a mosquito..!”
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
I knew the reason, the municipal man with the mosquito fog machine, was somewhere in the vicinity and soon smoke would be all over my house, which quite frightened my two canines. I remembered the call last month, “Bob, I know somebody in the municipality, they will see to it that our mosquitoes are driven away!”
“How?” I’d asked. “They will send a man with the machine and soon we will be mosquito free!” They’d been sending the machine, the man, and his smoke for the last four weeks, but I hadn’t yet seen a drop in my mosquito bites! As I heard the sound of the machine today, and felt the dogs next to me, I recollected a conversation I’d had with a friend who’d joined a pest control firm. His firm had got a government contract, to spray public transport buses before they left the terminal. “We quoted so low!” he chuckled, “That they had to give it to us, and our rates also include all the commissions we have to hand out!”
“But how will you do the job at such a low rate?” I asked, “Yes it is,” he admitted, “But we won’t be using it!” “No?” “No,” he chuckled, “We’ll just be using kerosene!” Many years ago while directing plays in the city, a machine I used a lot was the smoke machine. It created a lot of smoke on stage and gave the effect of something supernatural or ethereal happening.
And that is the smoke machine I see used all over the country. This morning I read about the bomb blast in Varanasi! Why? Don’t we have our intelligence machinery? Police officers who are supposed to gather information? After the 9/11 Twin Towers attack, America has never had a bomb blast! How is that possible except for the fact that their mosquito machines are really doing their work, while ours just create an illusion! Our IAS officers, policemen and the rest of our bureaucracy have built such a smoke screen around themselves, that it’s nearly concrete. It’s time the media and we people start looking beyond the smoke, and seeing what lies behind: Rot and filth!
I look at my poor dogs, trembling on my bed, and I feel like leaning across and telling them, “It’s only a lot of smoke, not enough to kill a mosquito..!”
—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com
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