last night, when i came home, i found a warzone awaiting me at our family area on the third floor. apparently, you could hear them gnawing and scurrying about even before you reached the third floor. like the sound of a machine. like the sound that crackling candy which i used to eat sounded when they crackled in my mouth. we had been invaded by termites!!!

the discovery of this warzone was triggered off by this weird coccoon like thing i saw getting longer along the corner between two walls above the staircase when i went downstairs in the middle of the night sometimes. turned out it was a termite nest and that these termites travel under the paint along the walls. the pesterminators told us that the termites' nest were probably some great distance beneath the house. little did we know how near we were to it.

then yesterday, as aunty was cleaning the family area, she decided to attack the lowest section of the bookshelf first. but you see, there are two bookshelves there which have cupboards on the lowest rungs. because the weight of the books above were so great, it had caused the cupboards to get stuck somehow and thus, noone bothered to open them for the longest time. and when aunty finally did yesterday, it was thriving with termites! there were big holes in everything! they were merciless! holes in the walls of the shelves, big ones! termites in the computer scanner! half-eaten photographs! carrom seeds! i don't know what else. there was powder all over, mini termite sand dunes. all joined together all around the bottom of the shelf. who would've thought such small things could create such havoc and destruction??!!

but it was really fascinating! the sound these termites made, the amount of wood they chewed into and wrecked, the big holes they left behind, the amount of dust and powder they had created....all this from such small, teeny weeny, white thingies...

when i got home, i went to examine the wreckage and my brother (pravin) was telling me about how my mom was crying when she learnt about this termite occupation in our house. he did quite a funny immitation of that haha. because of this discovery of the termite nest, we had to vacate the rest of the contents from the shelf. so lying all around in the family area were old photo albums. and we started picking them up and looking at that one by one. it was such a delightfully funny moment. looking at how cute we used to be, the bad hair, the bad fashion, the funny faces we made, the awkward smiles we tried to put on when taking photos, the funny and silly times, the holidays, the parties, the cousins, the weddings, people who had passed on, how skinny we used to be...so many things. my brothers, aunty and i were just standing there, glued to the albums, laughing heartily photo after photo. all this was happening while we were standing right next to the termite nest. we were making so much noise teasing each other and laughing and my mom was downstairs telling us to pipe down but we ignored her. i think she was sore that she couldn't come up and join in what was going on because she was too scared of the termite nest. but she finally came up and joined in too.

this morning, the pesterminators came and my mom told me to wake up because they were going to treat the whole third floor. i didn't wanna wake up yet so i went down with my eyes barely opened and knocked urgently on my brother's (jeevan's) room door to let me go in and sleep for a while. as i was trying to resume my sleep on the floor, my parents and one of the pesterminators walked into the room and i was like ..@!^@*&()! haha. then my dad said to the pesterminator, "don't mind this thing! it's just a big pest." then i rolled the blanket up over my face but it wasn't so nice sleeping like that with the poor guy trying to do his job in the room and me sprawled out in the middle of the room on the floor...so i shifted location and decided it was time to take a shower and head down for my music practice. and whaddaya know! mama let me drive haha. jeevan said i was good! thanks, jeevan! it was such an honour being able to drive people around. =)