Mosquitoes

Appa has warned the children about mosquitoes, but they are not impressed. They’re afraid of bats and snakes, not mosquitoes. After Appa has finished speaking, the children ask him to say ‘mosquito’ again.

The children enjoy asking Appa to say ‘mosquito’; he pronounces it ‘moss-quito’, which makes them laugh. Already the children have a different accent when they speak English. But no matter how much English they learn, they will always call their father ‘Appa’.


Bats and Snakes

Now, Appa stands in the veranda, the indigo sky behind him, he is about to enter the house. The children are restless beside him; he urges them to go indoors, away from the mosquitoes.

Appa doesn’t know that the children have just escaped from the bats, or so they feel. The children have a special zigzag way of running, which, they believe, not only protects them from bats, but also from snakes. Once again, this evening, the children feel that the bats would have flown into their ears, and then would have remained stuck forever within their heads if they hadn’t managed to escape in time. How and why the children have come to believe that bats want to fly into their ears is a mystery that even the children cannot fully explain. If Appa were to question them regarding this matter, they would say that they just know these things about bats.

For one thing, Appa tells the children that he cannot understand how such ...