One fine morning people in my lab discovered some muddied foot prints of some unknown animal on their papers and print outs of previous night. A matter of concern. More investigation is carried on. Footprints are found in walls, desks and many other places. In next 2/3 days a lot of running and screeching sound came from the tiled roof of the lab. Conclusion came that rats have infested the lab. Now what to do? Mass opinion came that head of the unit should be informed about this. People went to his cabin and informed the matter, "Sir, rats are there in lab 3. Some action must be taken against them." He got tensed, closed his eyes and started shaking his head, " With each shaking came a question in Bengali that posed real danger to burst your stomach with laughter." Hmmm Kohta Idhhur tomhra dekhechho? (tell me exactly how many rats have you seen?)" Whether he intended to take action against only the rats seen by us, and leave the others, I don't know! "Kothay dekhechho? (Where have you people spotted the rats?)" It seemed he was interested to do one to one mapping between the lab mates and the rats for his next work! May be he thought to establish some correlation between activities of the rats and us. Anyway one of us stated that he have seen two of the rats running near his seat in the lab. One enthusiastic professor chimed into this "Oh, It seems rats sit beside you to encourage you while you work." Some muffled quiet mental laughter happened. Head spoke again "Na bhabhte hobe idhhur ghulo tomadehr labe e keno jabe? (Why the rats will only go to you people's lab?)" No answer. We are baffled. How come we are answerable for some thing the rats did? Some more shaking of head and then pat came the observation from him. "Amra to oder janno kichhu e chadchi na... Ohra aar kothae jabe? (We are not living anything for them... Where they will go then?)" More pondering over the issue continued. Dear head took some more extra tension and assured all of us that some action will be taken against the rats. We returned contended.
Chapter did not end here. Rats became the main topic of discussion of the day. All the professors, research fellows and project personnels' minds pondered over the issue continuously. Some talked about the ancient ways used in their home by their grand parents to control pests. Some even went the extra mile by searching over possible rat killing methods in google. as usual nothing came out of all those efforts.
Next thing happened was a grainy looking short statured person entered our lab two days later and proudly declared "Idur marte asechi (came to kill the rats). For the time being we can refer him as Idur Mara Manab (Rat Killer- RK). Kothae idur? (Where are the rats?)" RK asked. We pointed the tentative places where previously some activity was seen. The cupboards and some locked cabins etc. Dham... Dham... Dhadam... He opened all the cupboards with much noise. It is necessary to say here that we the lab species (Homo sapiens labiens) are quite sophisticated, sitting in AC and working in silence for some last years. Noise did not suit us well. We need peace to rotate our mental wheels. Anyway he deftly inspected the footprints. Nodded his head few times to our amusement and declared "Thik idur hoyeche (Right guess Rats are there)" as if we don't know. Now his options came one by one. "Achha apnara ki chaan? idur tadate chaan ki idur dharte chaan na ki idur marte chaan (What do you people want? You want to expel the rats or catch them or kill them)." So many options. According to him there is a spray to prevent the rats from coming to the lab. But it is temporary and has to be done in phases. For the whole unit he will take Rs 1200/- per one spray. Quite costly. Next came catching the rats. In first phase a rat catching machine will be planted in the lab. Seemed like a good idea. But then the second phase is most horrid. Once the rats get caught, one have to blind fold and leave them at a distant place or directly submerge them in water till death. Not our cup of tea! Only the option of using some rat kill poison was left. The idea appeared wise to us. Let the rats eat poison and die somewhere else. Next day the person brought some rat kill cake, broke into parts and threw in different direction of the tiled roof of our lab, pocketed some money and vanished speedily. We were again contented... the rats will die now.
Two days went. No proof of rats' dying came to us. We are regularly blessed with rat singing in the mornings and evenings. Another three days went by. People started looking at each other with question marks written over their faces whenever the rats screeched. But no more new footprints were spotted on papers and materials. But the rats are still in the lab somewhere hiding. They can cut our precious research material to shreds any night. Somehow rats are cohabiting forcefully with us.
On the other hand I think, thay are typical research rats, intelligent like us. May be a few of them have eaten the poison, suffered and died somewhere else. This incident generated a signal of no more eating of the suspicious substance among the rest of the rat population. They become cautious and no more deaths resulted. An impressively speedy way of reinforcement learning? " Interesting!
Next thing happened was a grainy looking short statured person entered our lab two days later and proudly declared "Idur marte asechi (came to kill the rats). For the time being we can refer him as Idur Mara Manab (Rat Killer- RK). Kothae idur? (Where are the rats?)" RK asked. We pointed the tentative places where previously some activity was seen. The cupboards and some locked cabins etc. Dham... Dham... Dhadam... He opened all the cupboards with much noise. It is necessary to say here that we the lab species (Homo sapiens labiens) are quite sophisticated, sitting in AC and working in silence for some last years. Noise did not suit us well. We need peace to rotate our mental wheels. Anyway he deftly inspected the footprints. Nodded his head few times to our amusement and declared "Thik idur hoyeche (Right guess Rats are there)" as if we don't know. Now his options came one by one. "Achha apnara ki chaan? idur tadate chaan ki idur dharte chaan na ki idur marte chaan (What do you people want? You want to expel the rats or catch them or kill them)." So many options. According to him there is a spray to prevent the rats from coming to the lab. But it is temporary and has to be done in phases. For the whole unit he will take Rs 1200/- per one spray. Quite costly. Next came catching the rats. In first phase a rat catching machine will be planted in the lab. Seemed like a good idea. But then the second phase is most horrid. Once the rats get caught, one have to blind fold and leave them at a distant place or directly submerge them in water till death. Not our cup of tea! Only the option of using some rat kill poison was left. The idea appeared wise to us. Let the rats eat poison and die somewhere else. Next day the person brought some rat kill cake, broke into parts and threw in different direction of the tiled roof of our lab, pocketed some money and vanished speedily. We were again contented... the rats will die now.
Two days went. No proof of rats' dying came to us. We are regularly blessed with rat singing in the mornings and evenings. Another three days went by. People started looking at each other with question marks written over their faces whenever the rats screeched. But no more new footprints were spotted on papers and materials. But the rats are still in the lab somewhere hiding. They can cut our precious research material to shreds any night. Somehow rats are cohabiting forcefully with us.
On the other hand I think, thay are typical research rats, intelligent like us. May be a few of them have eaten the poison, suffered and died somewhere else. This incident generated a signal of no more eating of the suspicious substance among the rest of the rat population. They become cautious and no more deaths resulted. An impressively speedy way of reinforcement learning? " Interesting!
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