It didn’t take me too long to realize that I hate lizards, and this realization had nothing personal between us. I sensed that following are the few things about lizards which really freak me out.
Firstly, they are nervous; I don’t know why?, could be because of a compounding insecurity that we, the human beings, may hurt them; but whatever the reason may be, they do generate an equal nervousness in there surroundings by making the us squirm away from them. if you look at other insects- like cockroaches or ants or grasshoppers, they do allow you to assume some sense of power over them; you can swat a dumb cockroach or a diligent ant, or you can easily ignore the outdoor-existing-grasshoppers, but can we even think of hitting a lizard, and what if we do that? Imagine a dead lizard: a yellow bile coated reptile with a segregated tail lying somewhere close to your feet, with a cream colored interior lying upside down and facing towards you…yikkes!!, and worst of all, you collecting her last remnants with a broom, which will endure the stickiness of bile for another few days, stridently reminding you of the karmic debt you owed, and please don’t forget the dampness of floor which will shadow the dead lizard for at least few more hours. Now some of you may suggest that there is no need to kill a lizard, rather one can easily “shooo” her away from your abode, but this is where my second point comes in: resilience.
Lizards are, undoubtedly, resilient. One day, you gather the courage to face her agility, and you dance her away from your house to exteriors. Aahh, thank god, she’s gone now, but hang on, you wake up in the morning, and there you go, she has creeped
in once again, now what, I have to get dressed for office, and I cant arrange any more bouts with her right now; you are bound to ignore her, and leave grudgingly to your office. She wins, hurrah!!
Thirdly, lizards are awkward because of there lack of self confidence. I mean, are they sure of themselves? I don’t mind ignoring them and minding my own business- this is what my mother suggests, don’t hurt her, rather just ignore her- but those foolish creatures have a tendency to halt your thought process by suddenly thumping to ground, and then dazzling around you leaving you screamed with a wet forehead.
Fourthly, lizards catapult my worst fears. I mean just imagine, a lizard crawling inside your trousers, or a lizard clinging to my balls, a lizard resting at the back of my t-shirt, or a lizard gazing out of a woman’s cleavage... Yikkkes!!
lastly, the worst ones are the baby lizards who haven’t yet developed the sensitivity of sharing a room with human beings, and who could merrily hibernate in your shoes or a pile of books; they irrespective of violent shoo’ing may still chose to ignore, leaving you with no other option then to ask your dhobi to chuck her out of the house.
I noticed one thing above, why have I assumed a lizard as female throughout the above passage, is it because her Indian name is “chipkali” or “kirrrli”, may be, I guess we do assume a chipkali to be a female, which reminds me yet another point: if you see lizards mating on a wall, you are bound to wallow in anxiety, considering there awkward missionary pose (or whatever it is), shaped at the hems of a wall, with both the partners shaking sharply in vibration mode.
I embark upon this task of writing about something – frontiers, borders- with an intention to coagulate something which I have been reading a lot, though with a resonating guilt of merely reflecting someone else’s ideas. But I chose to ignore this guilt, and rather, gratuitously, hope to pen down what I seemingly found reflective in author’s article.
It didn’t take me too long to realize that I hate lizards, and this realization had nothing personal between us. I sensed that following are the few things about lizards which really freak me out.
