Covered in rashes all over his body, Narayanappa resembles a man recovering from burns. He developed the rashes following de-weeding work at Dorekere lake in ttarahalli.

This despite having applied mixture of pongamia and neem oil to protect himself from leeches infesting the highly contaminated lake. “The oil mixture lasts only for an hour but burns my skin. Once the oil layer is gone, leeches cling to my skin and suck my blood,” says Narayanappa. One among a dozen labourers from Mandya assigned the task to de-weed the lake, Narayanappa has been into de-weeding water bodies for many years. It takes a month to clean a water body.