Monday 24 March 2008

Different strokes for different folks...

The first thing I do every evening when I return home from work, after switching on the lights, is to open the door to the balcony off the hall. So imagine my astonishment & sheer terror when on doing the same last Thursday, I was greeted with the picture of a beehive hanging from the ceiling of our balcony. You might ask … “Why terror?” … well, being born and brought up in the concrete jungle of Kolkata, I am unused to being so close to nature. And, I’m not only scared of things that sting (like these bees) but also scared of the most innocuous insect which buzzes and / or flies, including things as harmless as moths or even butterflies.

To continue where I left … all doors and windows to all balconies were kept closed throughout the evening on Thursday and Friday morning saw us making frantic calls to people asking for help to get rid of these bees. One of these people reassured us that since the bees had been there only for a day so far, they had not really created the hive & would be easy to get rid of. This same good Samaritan suggested that we could get rid of the bees by creating a lot of smoke by burning saambhrani (or sambirani) dhoop over hot coal. So far, I had heard of the saambhrani being put to a totally different use. However, the fragrant saambhrani worked very well for us too and we were able to shift the hive from our balcony to a concrete overhanging slightly removed from it. That’s why I say … different strokes for different folks. :-)