Take a walk anywhere in Kochi after 10.30 pm and one particular sight will definitely greet you: Mosquito nets in all shapes, sizes and colours.

They’re around the sleeping figures of the homeless in the city, who battle mosquitoes along with poverty and the elements. They’re tied on top of trucks that are parked for the night, where the drivers sleep.

Sometimes, they’re accompanied by the mosquito bat, which punctuates the incessant buzz of the winged menace with the PHAT PHAT PHAT of them being electrocuted to death.

Other times, you can smell the ubiquitous mosquito coil from metres away.