This is something i thought i"d submit to the college magazine, but then thought naah, it was too good :-). I wrote it shortly after reading R K Narayan. You can perhaps see the influence.


The walled life of three wall lizards.

Your average wall lizard is a wholly unremarkable creature, when you compare it to, say, a magnificent elephant or a royal tiger or an exotic giraffe. Even less illustrious animals such a s monkeys, dogs and cats have a more interesting profile than the wall lizard. These animals make their presence felt in some way or the other, by ether being appealing to our senses, useful in our chores, or provide companionship and the much needed love and laughter. After all, what would a camel-driver be without his transvestite animal, blinking its feminine lashes and swaying its effeminate hips to the lilt of the sand. For that matter what would the blind beggar do without his dog or even the snake charmer without his cobra? Inspite of our supremacy in nature and our insistence to sit on high tables and take pride in our achievements, we are intrinsically a part of the animal kingdom. Animals complete our world and we intrude upon theirs.

But a house lizard is an unique specimen, if only for its commonality. It is the ultimate outcaste of the wilderness. It is ubiquitous, yet effortlessly merges with the surroundings, though no one can tell whether this is intentional or not. It inspires neither interest nor mistrust and certainly not fear. Even the mosquitoes and ants which constitute its staple diet are stirred into noticing its presence at the very last second, after which they are too dead to share their unique experience with their mates, or anyone else.

There are three of these rascals in my room, and two of us. We’re outnumbered but that’s quite irrelevant. In the universe of wall lizards, I’m as interesting as a moving door knob and moving door knobs haven’t inspired many scholars to action. My room-mate is in mortal fear of these little creatures. It’s most amusing to see him screw up his face and climb to the highest, most isolated point in the room. He then scans the room, probably already having mentally divided it into grids and sectors. He nudges his belongings with a trepid toe to drive out the lizard and waits patiently till the reptile has crossed the imaginary line of control and is at a distance from which it can’t shoot inter-continental ballistic missiles, or worse. For hours my room-mate studies the behavior of the trio, surely making copious notes when I’m asleep. He can gauge every move the lizards make and all their habits and patterns are knows to him like the back of his hand. Sometimes I join him in watching the lizards when for hours we look at them with wild abandon, day-dreaming about the good ol’ lizard free days. But most times I’m not as learned to make predictions with confidence. For instance, where they hide was something that confounded me, and often worried me. Disappearances harbors mistrust and doubt. You would like to know where the beautiful people of the world are and what they are doing. It’s natural. The fact that the space behind the black suitcase, the ledge beneath the window and the underbelly of the almirah were all potential shelters for them was revealed to me by my good roomy. Sometimes I wonder if after all this intense research on the three, he might have got attached to them and these days, staring at them is just out of fondness and indulgence. We get addicted to our fears, get infatuated with our demons.

My own observations are but amateur, more out of boredom than any academic interest or desire to collate data on the ‘enemy’. I have a short attention span and a penchant for getting distracted. My views on the life and times of wall lizards are ample proof of this.

As I had said, three lizards, for the sake of clarity let them be Fat, Thin and Small (which also describe their appearance on first glance) stay behind the aforementioned black suitcase on the shelf above our tables. The suitcase is in a big, plastic bag, thus its contents are without doubt a subject of intense curiosity and desire for the three. Perhaps this is the reason they have selected that spot, to put some color into their otherwise standard lives. Perhaps they play a game in which they fantasize about the lizard kingdom inside the black box where there is no hatred, no destruction, unlimited food for everyone and all lizards live in peace with each other composing ballads about the dark ages long past. Perhaps.

Fat, Thin and Small are nocturnal by nature. We rarely see them during the day. They come out at about eight in the evening and select a wall each for the evening. Whether they have an organized method of assigning the four walls is a matter of speculation. They sit (for lack of a better word) on the wall and then don’t do much else. On close inspection one can see their yellow scaly torso expanding and contracting, establishing the presence of life breath. They gaze constantly in a direction with the calm of sage on their lined faces. Infact their mellifluous calm is most soothing and yogic. They emit a quanta of this karmic bliss and sometimes I wonder if they were bigger, our size, they might have been role models for us. Except for the fact that they would have ether been killed, in a zoo or on our feet with laces in them.

The trio often exhibits spurts of energy. This is rarely happy in nature and is triggered mostly by some intruder, or a drastic change in weather or some disagreement between Fat and Thin. They race on the walls occasionally gracing the floor as well. They lunge at each other and make gurgling, hissing noises. These can also be the precursor of a long, sexual, steamy night. But these shy fellows wait for the lights to be switched before they get passionate.

Winter months pass without any appearances on their part. These are undocumented months about which I can only guess. But summers see a full onslaught of merriment on their part. With an abundance of insects to devour, room-mates to scare witless, and white walls to slither on, it is no wonder that their hides smile yellow with joy.