It was not quite a ‘bee’atific week. A professional bee-eliminator came calling at my place, even as the royal couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had a tryst with a bumble bee at Prince Charles’s 70th birthday celebration. While Meghan wearing nude tights at the event became the topic for debate in the social media, the bee episode at the Buckingham Palace garden tickled some funny bones around.
Prince Harry was in the middle of an almost emotional speech addressed to his father when a party pooper of a bee distracted him by flying up close and personal! Reacting to the onslaught, Prince Harry quipped, ‘Sorry, that bee really got me,” eliciting a hearty laugh from the audience including Charles, Camilla and his newly-wed wife. We say, these royal events are such boring affairs that we don’t mind some comic relief !
On a more sombre note, pop star Ariana Grande and many Mancunians recently made a beeline to get bee tattoos, in solidarity with the victims of the Manchester Arena terror attacks. But why the bee? I learned that the worker bee is a symbol for Manchester, epitomising the city’s industrial-industrious past. Being a melting pot of activities during the Industrial Revolution, the workers were touted as ‘busy bees’. The insects have left their imprint around Manchester, adorning the clock face of the Palace Hotel and the flooring at the Manchester Town Hall.
Back home and as the baap of all coincidences, I had a bizarre rendezvous with bees the same week. To my utter shock and awe, I discovered a fair-sized beehive snugly dangling on one of my potted plants placed on the windowsill. Yes, you heard it right. A patch of a mere window and not a sprawling balcony. While you can associate bees with royal gardens and plush orchards, who would have heard of a bee hive on a 1 BHK teeny- weeny flat’s window?
I was getting cold feet reading about an incident last month when 30 kids got hurt and some of them critically when a swarm of bees attacked them at a school in Chattisgarh. American auto racing legend A.J. Foyt was hospitalised recently after he was attacked by hordes of African killer bees at his Texas ranch. My bai added to my woes, pointing out that these were black bees, the poisonous kinds whose stings could be fatal! Although a Google search didn’t prove to be as informative as she was, I was suitably scared.
The SOS call went to my maali , who initially declined to intervene but finally caved in to my ‘bee’seeching.
And when finally he arrived, I was impressed by the fact that he had brought a professional along. ‘He is an expert. Woh yehi karta hain ,’ he said flatly.
You mean, he does that for a living? I was flummoxed. A professional bee-eliminator, that too in the heart of Mumbai? I couldn’t quite believe my ears! And what a professional he was and what swag! With a cloth wrapped around his face, hands in plastic gear and a lathi topped off with an oil-soaked cloth, he looked at me and asked, Madam, kitna doge ? I almost fell from my chair when he said he would charge Rs. 1,000 for carrying out this heroic task. A round of negotiations followed, we settled at Rs. 700 and he got down to his usual day job.
After he left, the place looked no less than a devastated battlefield. Charred and clipped branches of the plants, an overpowering stench of kerosene and few winged casualties strewn here and there spoke of the magnitude of the combat.
Unique professions
I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked my stars for unique professions such as these and the extent of help that we have around us which is such a rarity in the West. We don’t realise how each one of them, our maids, drivers, maalis and so many others contribute to smoothly running the wheels of our day-to-day life, which often we absolutely take for granted! ‘Bee’live me, we are blessed!
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