Delhi has always had a lizard problem. But it’s become worse since 2014. Here in the national capital, whether you are outdoors or inside your home, you are always surrounded by reptiles — always. I know some people don’t mind reptiles. They tell me, “Lizards keep your home cockroach-free. They eat all the insects.” But I’d rather deal with insects than lizards. I can at least go to war with insects, and win. But the very sight of a lizard — no offence meant to the religious sentiments of anyone who worships lizards — makes me lose my bearings. I’m like a deer caught in the headlights, or a PM before a camera.
I have tried to figure out why lizards bother me so much. I think it’s because they always appear unexpectedly, without warning. I am not saying lizards should call and book an appointment before visiting, though it would be nice if they did so. It’s just that, when you are totally lost in your own world, fantasising, for instance, about living in a country where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free and paneer is GST-free, you’re rudely yanked back to reality by a squiggly thing falling on your neck. You jump-squirm out of your skin, madly flailing about, until you catch a glimpse of it streaking across the floor and vanishing under your bed — and that’s it, you may as well say good night to a good night’s sleep. I would not be able to fall asleep until I have made — to borrow from Hollywood thrillers — ‘visual contact’ with the fugitive and ‘demobilised’ it.
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Unfortunately, but fortunately for the reptile, Wife thinks killing a lizard brings bad luck. I did some research and was stunned to find that in this country, in this day and age, lynching of lizards — especially of lizards — is widely disapproved. I merely find it impossible to co-exist with lizards and want to kill them all — a logically consistent position.
But Wife is terrified of lizards and yet, a staunch defender of their human rights. As opposed to having them killed, she wants them ‘disappeared’ — a distinction that would have made no sense to Augusto Pinochet. In her lexicon, ‘disappeared’ means ‘chased out of the house’. Since she doesn’t approve of child soldiers either, I cannot take Kattabomman’s aid for the search-and-deport operations. It’s all down to me — just one man against an invading army of mini-dinosaurs.
Lizard on a mission
People who have tried to communicate with lizards using a broom would know how fraught an endeavour it is. The lizard has not strayed into your bedroom because it has lost its way — it is there because it wanted to be there. It set out that morning thinking, ‘I am going to spend the next three months behind your dressing table mirror so I can jump on your face when you’re applying black tar.’ (It is a lizard, so it has no conception of ‘eyeshadow’ because it has never used one.)
Therefore, when you try to hustle it out of your home with a broom, instead of slithering towards the door, it rushes in the opposite direction — towards you. If your mental fortitude is anything like mine, you would do what I do every time — drop the broom and run.
Things came to a head last Sunday when a baby lizard scrabbled out of my keyboard — my own personal keyboard. To say that I felt violated would be an understatement — it’s like Mama Omicron sending its kids to ICMR for summer camp. I’d had enough. I consulted my friend Google for non-lethal ways of solving the lizard problem, and found two options: an electronic repellant called Nomo-Liza and a spray called Poda-Saniyan.
Unpleasant sound waves
Two seconds after I had placed the order for Nomo-Liza, I heard Wife emitting murmurs of dissent.
“What exactly is your problem?” I said. “As per the product description, it ‘produces ultrasonic sound waves — way beyond human hearing range — that repel lizards’. You plug it in, the sound waves are so unpleasant to the lizards they flee the house voluntarily — no violence involved.”
“That totally fits the U.N. definition of torture,” Wife said. “Assuming Mona Lisa actually works.”
“It’s Nomo-Liza,” I said. “Look, you can either have a lizard-free house, or you can have human rights of lizards.”
Thankfully, Wife’s reptile brain took over, and fear won over liberal values. It was a useless victory though. Nomo-Liza did not work — not on the lizards. Instead, it kept me awake at night. I could actually hear its low ultrasonic humming.
“Maybe your hearing is beyond human range,” Wife conjectured. “Better get your ears checked.”
The next morning, she drew my attention to an enormous lizard — its belly clearly bloated from overeating — sitting right on top of Nomo-Liza, grinning at us condescendingly.
(To be continued.)
The author of this satire, is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
sampath.g@thehindu.co.in
