Aik tha Chipkoo

I had woken up for class and was making a punch drunk beeline towards my room from the common room when I saw the eggshells tipsily leaning against either side of Kanwal’s door frame. Kanwal was a Hindu and roomed opposite me. Utterly untrained in the saleeqa of lizard warfare, I put down Kanwal’s act to some ritual paying homage to the chicken. I made a mental note to ask Vikash (Kanwal’s brother in my year.)
As we waited for the Daewoo, returning from breakfast at Mazung’s one drizzling, gorgeous morning Vikash expounded upon his hopelessness at knowing his way around his temple. I remembered the eggshells and asked him, ensuring I made the chicken sound like “THE CHICKEN” so as not to offend any sensibilities. He cracked up laughing and made several demeaning remarks about my intelligence or the lack thereof before enlightening me on the use of eggshells as lizard repellents.

As the hot summer melted into the hotter summer, the shells sprung up all over the place and my no tolerance policy towards lizards dwindled into preventive tolerance.

I remember sitting half an hour in the dark watching a lizard dart to the open door, linger over it, then dart back to its familiar spot. Lizards are without doubt the most uninspired, boring, passive creatures ever. They beat my family’s record for filthy procrastination. They know they want to go out towards the light. They will fix their freaky, beady eyes upon it, they will occasionally flit there-just to return. Their lack of ambition is singularly depressing.

During that one half hour vigil I found myself making analogies of the lizard with myself. Enough to make anyone cry. Needless to say the sentry duty ended in stupor inspired by a revelations of my own inadequacy. When I woke up the lizard was gone. Under the bed or table, I was too immune to it to care.

Since then I’ve seen miscellaneous ways of killing the poor “cherry”. Sana’s aunt, Appi, once chased it with what looked to my unspectacled eyes like an overgrown, bloated rose. She was wooing it with an onion, apparently ANOTHER form of ammunition (how come my mother never taught me the REALLY useful things?)

The lizard was behind a shelf. Sana clapped her hands together loudly to make it rush forward. Appi volleyed her with “AYE HAI!!! YEH KIYA KIYA??? TALI BAJA KER US KA DIMAGH KHARAB KER DIYA!!”

Sana and I were in hysterics thinking of the lizard’s impaired intellectual capabilities. Poor sod, wouldn’t win the Booker now.So we locked Appi in the dressing area to deal with the lizard as she wished.

While thumping sounds emanated from behind the door Sana and I flopped in front of her laptop to contemplate a picture of John Abraham (of the Jism and Saaya fame) in an onion skirt. In retrospect the dude was the epitome of a weapon of mass destruction as far as lizards are concerened. He looked quite a hero-the subcontinent’s own Marvel production of the “Wild Onion” or “Jangli Piyaz.”

I’m still obsessed with my abysmal lack of knowledge about these “totkas” to get rid of lizard. Maybe because in our house its quite a family production.
One yell and the doors are shut, clothes yet to be laundered stuffed under doors to block passage, tables moved, every awake member of the household summoned and duly shrieked at “TUM KUCH KER KIYOON NAHI RAHEY?RAHI??”

There will be a broom, always, always one whose twigs are so loosely bound that at one point in the operation the jharoo goes flying in all directions. People will get on chairs and I always end up with the pesticide to spray on the reptile until its doped out.

This takes usually anywhere from half an hour to one hour. Unless we have my thirteen year old cousin in the house who is the master of efficiency. He takes off his slipper, cannon balls it at the lizard on the ceiling, there is a satisfying squelch and the catatonic, broken backed lizard falls flat with its legs in the air. Eew.Eew. Eeew.

Gratuitous violence. The menu of alternatives doesn’t stop there. Asad who once spent three fourths of an hour coaxing a lizard towards his dorm room window. Once there the brute changed its course. Out of patience Asad went potty. Took his belt and in true Neanderthal style, whacked the lizard with it until it sliced into two. And proceeded to jump gleefully up and down on the bed yelling “Mar gayee!! Mar gayee!!” I swear it’s people like him who end up in the army.

For my part I’m trying to lower my abhorrence threshold to a level where I can pick Chipkoo (first name basis is a technique) up and fling him/her into some beautiful garden somewhere. Community service in as much as it consists of lizards, cockroaches and the like.

PS. My brother insists on my mentioning that he has singlehandedly with his feet on the ground (and not on the chair) killed most of the lizards entering the house and asks that I declare myself a coward.

PPS.Sana I hope youre happy I didnt call it Lizzy or Bunty or anthing but stuck to pure desi Chihpkoo.