Rats and Roaches
It was while we were in Delhi that the mystery began. Every night, strange sounds would come from the kitchen. Wires were being chewed up, little clues were being left behind, and there was clear evidence of what appeared to be a rather large rat moving about with far too much confidence. We lived on the third floor, so the first question was obvious: how had such a large rat reached us? Had it climbed the stairs? Or were Delhi rats, as part of their urban development, now trained in climbing up the walls?
One night, around midnight, the noise became too much to ignore. I decided to investigate, with the caution of someone who did not really want to meet what he was looking for. To my surprise, I found not one rat but an entire family of eight or more, apparently enjoying a well-organised midnight outing in our kitchen. The immediate question was: how do we get them out? The longer-term question was even more difficult: how do we keep them away without turning our home into a heavily guarded border post?
But then my imagination started running wild. Suppose I were the father rat, leading the family on a food expedition. What would I think? Here was a house with the possibility of easy food from the waste in the dustbin. We were, admittedly, food wasters, though we had not expected that to lead to a rodent dining scheme. Their other resources had run dry. From his point of view, this house may not have been an invasion target; it was probably a last resort. After all, the future of his children and the next generation was at stake.
For me, they were pests disturbing my well-maintained home, helped along by some waste food lying around. For them, it was the survival plan of a family. The same kitchen, it seemed, was both my territory and their potential promised land.
It is funny how the same situation can look completely different depending on whether you are the house owner or the rat with eight hungry mouths to feed.
But then, is this not what we do to members of our own species? Some fight for survival and a future, while others (like me at times) see them as pests and painful interruptions to our well-managed existence, where everything is supposedly right and fine. In their fight for survival and a future, if some walk into unwanted places, as defined by those like me, who have an “everything is good” life, they are thrown out or prevented from coming in again.
That is what I did. Instead of killing them or beating them up, I chose the milder option - though, to be honest, I was also too afraid to do anything else. It was not compassion. I opened the windows and frightened them out. I also discovered where they were coming in from, and the next day I got workers to block the hole that had become their entry point. And then we lived happily ever after. No rat disturbed us again.
Did it change my behaviour? I do not think so. The waste food was still there, but I had succeeded in preventing the pests from disturbing my well-manicured life.
This is what we see all around the world. Some of us live well-manicured lives, while others struggle for their future. I wonder if there is another way to live. Maybe I should do this body-swapping more often - think like rats and roaches to see how they think, rather than looking at life through the spectacles of my well-protected world. Or, as I considered in a previous blog: “Swap bodies with your enemy, (rats for me), your opposing party, or the one you hate, (rats again), just for a season of three months. You might emerge with a different set of perspectives.”
https://santhoshsramblings.blogspot.com/2026/05/swapped-2026.html
This is what the Good Book says: “See yourselves the way Jesus saw himself. He had God-level status - the ultimate VIP pass - but he didn’t clutch it or parade it around. Instead, he let it go. When the moment came, he set aside all the privileges and chose the role of a servant, stepping right into our messy, ordinary human world.”
The ability to see life through the eyes of ordinary, challenged human beings and those whom we consider as pests! To step into their lives. I should try to do this more often. And open up my windows and doors to let the so called pests enjoy our food too. (within some boundaries of course)
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