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Besides the private hospitals minting money no one else seems to be making any sort of profit from the spread of dengue in Delhi. Now that foreign news media are labelling it the worst ever crisis from this disease, we really do come off as a third world country and truth be told no one in authority seems to have any clue what to do. There is a lot of shouting and promises of action but the pre-epidemic plans never got going... clearly. No wonder the hospitals can extort upto Rs 20,000 for a unit of platelets.

Overloaded hospitals, patients sharing beds, exploitation of the illness, absolutely no concept of a red alert, no community programme to save ourselves and all this rubber banded by a fatalistic and often stoic surrender to the inevitable. 'Chaltha hai' seems to be the operative sentiment.

That damn mosquito is democratic to the core. It doesn’t care who it bites. With 1,800 people down and the casualty count soaring by the hour (14 dead) it is time to stop seeing it as some sort of inevitable spring fest. And really, who the hell cares about the litany of figures and statistics that are marched out every morning in the media. How is the administration fighting back.

I had one person tell me on the phone that this is the dengue season, can’t be helped. Can’t be helped?????? You want to die?

It is a disease that kills. Instead of everyone just ducking the issue let’s get real. The first thing I would do is mark out a 48 hour ‘Destroy Dengue’ period and have every citizen of the capital join the clean up drive and ensure their little patch is sanitised. Collectively, a whole campaign across the capital.

Just because every year there is no genuine effort to control the problem and Dilliwallahs are so blasé about it, this does not justify the absurd degree of tolerance for official ineptitude.

The population has to fight back and fight hard. These are your families in danger. Your little children. How do we accept this imposition on us with such patience?

By now the Health Ministry must be having a pretty decent idea where the breeding grounds for these mosquitoes are and the army should be called in if necessary to join the Municipality services in attacking swamps, still water areas and stagnant pools. Every family should get up in the morning and ensure there are no damp corners in their homes. Places where crowds gather like schools, railway stations, bus depots, airports should be totally sanitised. Slums should be seen as high threat areas and blanketed with disinfectant.

Pharmaceutical companies should distribute subsidised prophylactics and DDT cans to every locality where a Dengue Action Committee should co-ordinate efforts to remove all areas, inside and out, that are possible breeding grounds.

By now a campaign should be in full flow warning people to exercise hygiene, you there, don’t pee against the wall and throw your garbage in the bin not around it. Fine the defaulters.

If we don’t make this a community war on every possible front and lie back and wait for the authorities to do it you bet it won’t go away. The 2013 record of over 75,000 cases will be surpassed. Kejriwals and commoners will be equally susceptible.

It makes sense. If the 15 million people wake up, stop pretending this seasonal scourge will disappear and clean two square yards each we’ll get that mosquito...will we do it.

We better, because no one is going to do it for us.