Sunday, July 4, 2010

Creepy crawlies

Long long time since I posted. And yes, truly this time I was busy and it wasn't the usual boredom that causes the big gap between my posts.
I literally had so many topics buzzing in my head that I wanted to write about. Some frivolous and some serious. And yet again, I prefer frivolous over serious.
I am sure you must have already guessed wht I am writing about. I thought it was more of a colloqial word and wouldn't find place in dictionary. No, it does. As a noun it is defined as 'a spider, worm, or other small, flightless creature, esp. when considered unpleasant or frightening'. The creature I was gonna write about does not exactly fit this definition.It is not that small, specially when it grows up or when you are watching it from close quarters (avoid this). But yes, they are definitely unpleasant and hence frightening, at least to me. Nope, I am not talking about snakes. They are frightening hence unpleasant. The other way round relationship is more true for ------ Lizards. Not everyone may have had an encounter with snake, but lizards... I am sure everyone has waged a war with them at least once.

But even though I claim to hate them, I can't help but be fascinated by them. You know how with any animal or insect, there is a default gender that you associate. For e.g: Dog is always 'He', Cat is always 'She', Sparrow is always 'She' and Crow is always 'He'. Quite subjective, but thats how I speak of them. For me lizard was always a 'She'. Reason was that I had learnt a poem on 'Her' as a child. I remember just the first few lines -

Lalita lizard sitting on the wall,
how is it that you never ever fall,
Upside down you hang on the ceiling ,
I often wonder what you must be feeling.

An amusing poem and truly my thoughts too. But everytime I came face to face to one such Lalita or any of her cousins, amusement was the last thing on my mind. Lizard hunting was out of my purview. Whenever others in my house were engaged in any such battle, I would be standing on the top of a bed or chair in the other room, imagining every moving ray of light to be the lizard being hunted. Of course this imagination was never in mute mode and my shrieks though disturbing added the perfect background score to the battle. But that was way back in the past. As everybody staying alone has to fight their darkest fears and inner demons, I had to as well.
My first battle with lizard (in which I returned victorious) could might as well as be the topic for another post. (Don't worry I won't write that, I know you are already bored with this one).Though the fear has reduced fascination has not. I thought I was the only one fascinated by them. But no, there is an entire country that worships it and considers them lucky. Of course they are not ordinary house lizards but colorful ones, native only to that country. It is probably the only place where I saw a lizard print on clothes. I was completely in awe of it, but finally some common sense prevailed and I didn't buy that. But common sense did not sustain for long and now I have a wooden lizard on my refrigerator door :)