a spiderweb that ensures me peaceful sleep

a few days back i felt like cleaning up my room due to presence of some junk on the floor. i looked around and noticed many spiderwebs at the corners of the ceiling. naturally, i decided to clean them too. just as i had brought the broom and was about to clean them off, i noticed something that felt pleasant. there were many dead mosquitoes hanging here and there in them. i felt wickedly happy. then i looked carefully at all of them (the spiderwebs) and was surprised to see all of them chock full of dead mosquitoes. i grinned wickedly again. its been hot here in delhi since about 2 weeks, and mosquito numbers have been spiraling out of control. no matter how many hours i keep the mosquito repellent on, mosquito growth has consistently outpaced efforts to control them.

and then i thought about it and realised that if i remove those spiderwebs, it harms me more than it helps me. it does me no harm if there are some spiderwebs hanging off my room's ceiling. and if i remove them, the number of alive mosquitoes in my room will increase, and that certainly will be unpleasant.

thinking more about this, to find out the reason of this unbalance of mosquitoes, i realised that the 'food chain' and 'ecosystem' concepts i studies back at school many years back are in play here. i remember reading that if any level of a food chain goes out of balance, it disrupts the number of organisms in other levels. i felt that my room is a small ecosystem, where killing/removing spiders will increase number of insects [on whom spiders feed]. so true. i left them as it is, and i enjoy more peaceful sleeps now, i assume, than i would have had i cleaned them up.

update 21-4-07
i told about this to mummy, and she told me that one should keep surroundings clean as clean surroundings keep one's spirits high, and one's mind fresh and energetic. mummy is so right. i cleaned up the spiderwebs today as per mummy's suggestions, and i actually realise that it works as she said. so no more spiderwebs in room now. the mosquitoes still remain at bay, since i run the mosquito repellent for longer time per day now.

version 2
21-4-07