It had not been quite a ‘bee’atific week. A professional bee eliminator came calling at my place and the Royal couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had a tryst with a bumble bee at Prince Charles’ 70^th birthday patronage celebration. While Meghan wearing nude tights at the event became the topic for debate in the social media, the bee episode at the Buckingham Palace garden tickled some funny bones around.

Reportedly, as Prince Harry was in the middle of delivering an emotional speech addressed to his father, a party pooper bumble bee distracted him by flying up close and personal! Retaliating the onslaught, Prince Harry quipped ‘Sorry, that bee really got me,” eliciting a hearty laugh from the audience including Charles, Camilla and his newly-wed wife. We say, these royal events are such boring affairs that we don’t mind some comic relief ‘bee’ch ‘bee’ch mein!

On a sombre note, this week also saw pop star Ariana Grande and Mancunians making a beeline to get bee tattoos in solidarity with the victims of the Manchester Arena terror attacks. But why bee? I learned that the worker bee is a symbol for Manchester, epitomising the city’s industrious past. Being a melting pot of activities during the Industrial Revolution, the workers were touted as ‘busy bees’. The insects have left their imprints around Manchester, adorning the clock face of the Palace Hotel and the flooring at Manchester Town Hall.

Back home and the ‘baap’ of all coincidences, I had a bizarre rendezvous with bees this very week. To my utter shock and awe, I discovered a fair-sized bee hive snugly dangling to one of the branches of my potted plants, placed on the windowsill! Yes, you heard it right. A patch of a mere window and not a sprawling balcony. While you can associate bees with royal gardens and plush orchards, who would have heard of a bee hive on a 1 BHK tiny weeny window?! ‘Bee’p!

I was getting cold feet reading about an incident last month when 30 kids got severely hurt and some of them were critical when a swarm of bees attacked them at a school in Chattisgarh. American auto racing legend A.J. Foyt was hospitalized recently after he was attacked by hordes of Africanized killer bees on his Texas ranch. My bai added to my woes pointing out that these were black bees, the poisonous kinds whose stings could be fatal! Although Google didn’t prove to be as resourceful as she was, albeit I was suitably scared.

The first SOS call went to my maali who initially declined but finally caved in to my ‘bee’seeching. And when finally he arrived, I was thoroughly impressed that he had brought a professional along. ‘He is an expert. Woh yehi karta hain,’ he said flatly. You mean he does that for a living? I was flummoxed. A professional bee eliminator that too at the heart of Mumbai city, I couldn’t believe my ears! And what a professional he was and what swag! With a cloth wrapped around his face, hands in plastic gear and a lathi topped off with an oil-soaked cloth, he looked at me and asked, ‘Madam kitna doge?’ I almost fell from my chair when he told that he will charge 1000 bucks for carrying out this heroic encounter! A round of negotiation followed, we settled at 700 and he got down to his usual day job.

After he left, the place looked no less than a devastated battle field. Charred and clipped branches of the plants, an overpowering stench of kerosene and few winged casualties strewn here and there bespoke the magnitude of the combat. I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked my stars for unique professions such as these and the extent of help that we have around us which is such a rarity in the West. We don’t realise how each one of them- our bai-s, drivers, maali-s and so many others contribute to smoothly run the wheel of our day-to-day life and which many a times we absolutely take for granted! ‘Bee’live me, we are blessed!