Lizard Tales

Lizards...

I feel the creeps even as I write this! I feel a yuck! eeews ! A kind of feeling in my head and my toes already feel something creepy... Well, this is how half the world views the lizards. My moms voice pops up in my head " That small lizard would not be able to kill you! Considering it has never bitten anyone in my knowledge". She chides as I refuse to get into the bathroom, which has a petrified me in one corner and a equally petrified lizard on the opposite corner!

Well yesterday, the same small lizard almost killed my roomie with a partial heart and partial panic attack. This made me wonder what is it about lizards that petrifies us so much?

First, I remembered the good old house lizards which colonize our house and terrorize our souls. Well there are two reasons I can think of why I don't like them : 

• Lore says that these tiny things are poisonous and it they fall into your food well that could well be the ' The end ' of the people who consume it! When i checked the net now no such fact was confirmed... but I still trust the gyan given by my ancestors and chose to believe the lizards are poisonous 
• The lizards pee is acidic! well I have to accept I have never seen a lizard pee in gallons from the top of the ceiling but well I could give my ancestors some credit and chose to believe them 
• The lizards and squishy squashy ( the feeling I get... nothing to do with their constitution... they are vertebrates for those who are susceptible to get misled) and give me goose bumps 
• They run over the ceiling , so they petrify me with the threat of falling on my dear head... OK they are not cows that can kill by dropping dead on you.... but nevertheless not a very nice idea.
• Though I deem them far less dangerous than a rat or a cockroach which stray into the house, I still am biased to hate the lizards the most. Ya, for one you cant kill them....

That reminds me though I have seen some firang friends throw a shoe and squash a lizard or two . I have not seen any such act by Indians.... Back home I'm pretty sure it is a sin! If you even accidentally crush a lizard to death it is a unwritten law to visit the temple of Kanchi and pay penance to the golden  lizard statue there or at least wash the feet of some one who has touched the golden statue. 

spring you the picture of orginal lizards.... this is the holy golden statue in Kanchi 

By the way That reminds me when the lizards make a kick kich kind of odd noise, people read omen into it... I have heard good and bad omens of it... so no clue which one to follow... Or, u might simply be in North India where the lizards are visibly larger in size compared to their south Indian counterparts but are noticeably more silent . A few of my north Indian friends refuse to believe lizards make noise at all. But ya on a personal level I see the north Indian lizards are visibly larger but very slow and silent almost lazy .... in winters they vanish ( hibernate) and in summers they simply dangle it corners like dd coloured paint melting off the walls.... So I perceive them less dangerous then their south Indian counterparts which dart around the house like hyper active children!