The Lizard in My Room

On one of the many uneventful days, I walked inside my dark room, moved my hands over the switchboard to turn the lights on and there I saw it - a filthy lizard right above my hand. As I gripped and twisted my thoughts about which planet to relocate to, the lizard quickly vanished among the shirts hanging by the hooks behind the door. The time to burn the shirts had arrived.

Not soon later, I realized that both of us were equally scared of each other. I ran out of the door when I saw it and it vanished on its usual journey in the maze of my clothes. While we continued running away from each other, I started to see the lizard as an extension of myself - my own Richard Parker. It began to appear everywhere - on the mirror, on the fan and on the computer screen.

However, the unsocial breed of humans that I belong to, the disease of dissociation bred the idea of driving the creature out of my life. It's easy catching a mouse than driving a lizard out of one's life. I could not present it with a worthy bait because the monster thrives on insignificant insects. I could not drive it out with a stick because it would hide among the gaps.

I plotted the most vicious of plans. I threw away the electric lights. I darkened out the windows with dark curtains. I bought a candle and kept it in the middle of the room. I opened the door momentarily at night and the insects arrived soon. I was waiting for the lizard. I kept myself still for hours not willing to scare away the monster with my movement. It arrived soon - crawling from one of the corners to the centre of the room. I could not take its sight. I had to drive it out of my life. It started snapping on the insects - that evil creep. I pounced on it with my pillow. I could feel it wring under the weight of my hands over the pillow. I couldn't hold myself back. I had to finish it now. I wanted the worst death for the monster. I held the candle and set the pillow on fire. My hands started burning but I was determined to finish it off. Soon, my shirt was ablaze but I could still feel the lizard moving under the pillow. The fire began to gorge into my skin and every bit of my body was in pain. The failure to kill the lizard would've finished me faster than the burns. The glare of the fire kept me going. I felt my skin falling off and energy seeping out of my body. I was consumed by the flames. It was a pleasant end. "Surely it must've died by now," was my last thought. With a smile, I opened my eyes for one last time. The lizard was sneaking from underneath the pillow out of the door.

A bit about lizards

Even as I type the word a sense of ewwness takes over me. True that I try my best to love all the beings in the world irrespective of their colour, size, number of feet, weight or fur but my conscience doesn’t allow me to take the sight of a lizard.

I remember that as a kid, lizards were pretty much central to my decision of whether to enter my room or to stay out of it. In case I spotted one in the toilet, I’d stop my execution half way and instead contribute to the faster growth of a plant in a pot. Those were the days – you could water a plant openly and people would think it to be cute. (For the sake of humanity do not try it now!) An expensive research shows that one of the biggest fears in the world is that of a lizard falling on you. Of course, I was the only subject of the research.

The bloody things are just the right combo of brilliance and dumbness. They’ll position themselves on the small little walls on top of the doors scaring you every time you enter or step out. A witness says that I turn into a Mask-o-Shaktiman when I approach a door - walking faster than space ships. And when you try to shoo them off (or request someone else to do it for you, like in my case), they’ll play dead! Ha! How dumb is it to play dead on the walls? I suppose they don’t understand the gravity of the situation and hence, try to ignore gravity. Like the clash of arrows in Ramayana, a simultaneous occurrence of their boom of brilliance and our jolt of irritation takes place when they try their fake act of camouflage! Turn by turn, they’ll position themselves on all the brown coloured stuff –cupboard, shorts, chocolates, teddy bears, even mehen-dyed hair! And whose idea was it to have brown coloured brooms – the ultimate weapon to shoo lizards off?

As if the witty take on gravity was not enough, there is a touchy issue with gender sensitivity. All lizards (in Hindi and Marathi) are females. If you are a male with lizards in your room, it gives you a chance to come out of your room, make a public display of stretching yourself and when a friend tries to enter your room, shout at him, “Andar mat ja yaar… Woh dono abhi bhi so rahi hai!”

If you’re looking for things that keep lizards away, let me tell you, there’s absolutely nothing. People have told me to try egg shells and peacock feathers but none of them work. I have even gone to the extent of keeping egg shells painted with shades of peacock feather. May be I am the ultimate crawl-and-creep magnet. However, now that I have grown up, I have started believing friends who say that lizards are harmless – even good, since they eat bugs. So even as I write this, I am quite comfortable while a babe-on-the-front-wall stares at the screen secretly planning to fall on the keypad. Oh damn!! It is actually happening (in slow mo)! Itagkabd##%@goabgfbaohuba die die die!