"Disgust and fear" - a twin-emotion which wells up the moment we mention "lizard". Think a little more, and the face contorts, the arms stiffen, the body gives a little twitch...and shivers go down the spine! It is instinctive, much like the feeling of a finger-nail scratching the blackboard! We cannot help it. It is a throwback to our past, down to that day when the lizard suddenly leaped and landed on the head! And the rest of the events which unfolded- a quick peek into the "panchaang" and the foreboding of certain death! The fear and disgust never went away.
We don't exactly know why we find lizards creepy. It's a feeling we hold for reptiles as a species, and for lizards in particular. May be, because they share the home-space with us in such an intimate way. Glance up and you see the lizard- in ones, in twos...and suddenly several of them- pale-pink, brown, jet-black and even spotted. A little head bobs out of the crack in the ceiling, a tail dangles out of the tube-light, one is tantalizingly poised over the door-sill and another dashes at breakneck speed across the diagonal of the wall! Now, who is going to enter that bedroom, switch the lights off and spend a night there? Not me!
Driving out a lizard is an exercise in futility. You keep the windows and door wide open and a use a stick to prod the lizard out. As in any venture, there's exactly one person doing the ugly job. Directors are many. You hear an excited running commentary- on where the lizard now lurks, from various vantage points at ground-zero. The objective is simple- you tap the stick and coax the lizard out of the window. There is some success, no doubt. Over the background noise of shrieks and screams, you manage to shake the lizard out of his slumber...and lead him in the direction of the window. One more tap and he should be out! The mood is expectant and upbeat, but life is never so easy. Only two things happen with the next tap- he has now retraced his path back to his original home, or worse, found a new home, behind an old photo-frame. There are just too many obstacles out there- curtains, light-fixtures, wall-hangings, photo-frames and paintings. The process begins all over again. To your horror, since the window is now open, you have just let in one more friend into the room. After a point, it is terribly frustrating, numbed as you are, with a neck-ache. You have half a mind to swing the stick wildly and break everything in its wake, if that can take care of the lizard. Thankfully, discretion as they say, is a better part of foolhardiness! We miss the basic point- this is the lizard's home as much as ours!
Sometimes, you do get the lizard, at least a part of him! The stick lands on the lizard, smack on his tail. Faced with this existential crisis, the lizard gives the slip- neat and simple.....he ejects his tail out! Disgust is now magnified several fold- the lizard darts across sans tail.....while the tail comes tumbling down at you! May be, Mother lizard comforted her kid that day- "what blow came straight for the head, at least it went off....with just the crown!" or an equivalent lizardian-tail proverb! We don't know.
With monsoons, nature comes alive. Winged-termites swarm all over the tube-light. Lizards go "chip-chip-chip"- their calls exchanged across the room. For them, it is a veritable feast as they stalk and nab their prey. We fear that by the next morning, they would have grown to crocodile-like proportions and would have crowded us out of the room!
Lizards find homes you least expect. One had crawled his way up the water-tube...into the geyser. Switch the geyser on and he is there….his snout and fore-paws....clearly defined against the red of the geyser light! And refraction doing the trick to make him look like a giant....much like a T-Rex! Any takers for a bath with a lizard please? And the other time, when he stepped right into an open bottle of white shoe-polish! I told my sister to keep it closed! Just when I reached out for the bottle, he crawled out....all white and dripping....leaving a trail of white paw-marks all over the floor and up the wall!
The cosy confines of a lizard-free home is a fitting place for reflection! End of the day, lizards are very much a part of creation and our lives. They keep insects at bay. We look at them with disgust; perhaps, they will evaluate us the same way. The more keenly we observe, there is beauty even in a lizard. We admire the lizard's paws, much like a child's tiny fingers, his beady eyes, his mottled skin and his agility.
If not anything, we appreciate a lizard's presence of mind and his sense of humour in finding novel ways to outwit us!
.
We don't exactly know why we find lizards creepy. It's a feeling we hold for reptiles as a species, and for lizards in particular. May be, because they share the home-space with us in such an intimate way. Glance up and you see the lizard- in ones, in twos...and suddenly several of them- pale-pink, brown, jet-black and even spotted. A little head bobs out of the crack in the ceiling, a tail dangles out of the tube-light, one is tantalizingly poised over the door-sill and another dashes at breakneck speed across the diagonal of the wall! Now, who is going to enter that bedroom, switch the lights off and spend a night there? Not me!
Driving out a lizard is an exercise in futility. You keep the windows and door wide open and a use a stick to prod the lizard out. As in any venture, there's exactly one person doing the ugly job. Directors are many. You hear an excited running commentary- on where the lizard now lurks, from various vantage points at ground-zero. The objective is simple- you tap the stick and coax the lizard out of the window. There is some success, no doubt. Over the background noise of shrieks and screams, you manage to shake the lizard out of his slumber...and lead him in the direction of the window. One more tap and he should be out! The mood is expectant and upbeat, but life is never so easy. Only two things happen with the next tap- he has now retraced his path back to his original home, or worse, found a new home, behind an old photo-frame. There are just too many obstacles out there- curtains, light-fixtures, wall-hangings, photo-frames and paintings. The process begins all over again. To your horror, since the window is now open, you have just let in one more friend into the room. After a point, it is terribly frustrating, numbed as you are, with a neck-ache. You have half a mind to swing the stick wildly and break everything in its wake, if that can take care of the lizard. Thankfully, discretion as they say, is a better part of foolhardiness! We miss the basic point- this is the lizard's home as much as ours!
Sometimes, you do get the lizard, at least a part of him! The stick lands on the lizard, smack on his tail. Faced with this existential crisis, the lizard gives the slip- neat and simple.....he ejects his tail out! Disgust is now magnified several fold- the lizard darts across sans tail.....while the tail comes tumbling down at you! May be, Mother lizard comforted her kid that day- "what blow came straight for the head, at least it went off....with just the crown!" or an equivalent lizardian-tail proverb! We don't know.
With monsoons, nature comes alive. Winged-termites swarm all over the tube-light. Lizards go "chip-chip-chip"- their calls exchanged across the room. For them, it is a veritable feast as they stalk and nab their prey. We fear that by the next morning, they would have grown to crocodile-like proportions and would have crowded us out of the room!
Lizards find homes you least expect. One had crawled his way up the water-tube...into the geyser. Switch the geyser on and he is there….his snout and fore-paws....clearly defined against the red of the geyser light! And refraction doing the trick to make him look like a giant....much like a T-Rex! Any takers for a bath with a lizard please? And the other time, when he stepped right into an open bottle of white shoe-polish! I told my sister to keep it closed! Just when I reached out for the bottle, he crawled out....all white and dripping....leaving a trail of white paw-marks all over the floor and up the wall!
The cosy confines of a lizard-free home is a fitting place for reflection! End of the day, lizards are very much a part of creation and our lives. They keep insects at bay. We look at them with disgust; perhaps, they will evaluate us the same way. The more keenly we observe, there is beauty even in a lizard. We admire the lizard's paws, much like a child's tiny fingers, his beady eyes, his mottled skin and his agility.
If not anything, we appreciate a lizard's presence of mind and his sense of humour in finding novel ways to outwit us!
.
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