Eeks! There’s a gecko on the wall! If that is you shrieking, we are united in our fear of house lizards. A gecko on the wall twenty feet away is one gecko too many for me! So why write about them, you might ask? Alas, inspiration comes in many forms, and not always in the shape of the adored. In the grand scheme of the universe, my muses are the drab and the down-trodden! Pesky flies. Disappearing donkeys. And geckos!
I must, though, right here at the beginning apologise to the gecko lovers. Yes, indeed, there are some who adore them and are pet-parents to geckos. Not anyone I know, though. A gecko being petted at close quarters would rather spoil any relationship I might contemplate with them.
Gecko in free fall
I mean no offence to the creatures themselves. Nor would I be rude enough to comment on their appearance – their plump bodies, beady eyes and the disembodied tails with a wriggling afterlife of their own! It is their rather unexpected behaviours that makes my heart go aflutter! Like when they suddenly dart out from behind framed pictures on the wall, bookshelves and such other unexpected places. Let’s face it, I’m well past the age for a game of peek-a-boo!
Worse still is the frightful suspense of watching the gecko as it clings to ceilings, doorways, and other high places, and wait for the inevitable to happen. Though scientists wax eloquent over the gecko’s climbing and clinging abilities, we know better! A gecko on the wall can, at any moment, turn into a gecko in free fall! The favoured landing spot is often the human beneath. Indeed, these falls are so frequent that ancients have compiled them and their consequences into the great treatise – Gowli Pathanam Shastram. A ready reckoner for those whose lives and limbs have been touched by the gecko!
Childhood encounters
My rambling childhood home with its many doors and windows was open to a variety of non-human guests. Sparrows, mynahs, cats, squirrels, and even an occasional monkey. And geckos. They never missed their nightly feasts, for the fluorescent tubelights attracted insects by the hordes.
By and large, they were a well-behaved lot. Understandably so, since they had free board and lodging! If they were impertinent enough to emerge unannounced in company or flout social distancing norms; they were shooed away with a little help from flailing arms, feather dusters and brooms. They would disappear behind the huge ancestral portraits on the wall, or behind bookshelves and cabinets. Out of sight was deemed to be out of mind, as far as the geckos were concerned.
Our relationship took a turn for the worse one balmy winter afternoon. I was curled up on a sunny window ledge, immersed in the adventures of the Famous Five. As a villainous hand reached out to grab the hero by the shoulder, a slithery, wet plop landed on mine! My scream shattered the family’s afternoon siesta. My grandmother, (bless her!) a storehouse of tales, myths and superstitions, assured me that the gecko’s fall was a lucky omen. I would amass great wealth, she predicted. I haven’t given up hope yet.
The chuckling lizards of Chabua
Marriage entailed a move to many old British-era cantonments where I was introduced to many sub-species and tribes of the gecko family. The most unforgettable were those we nicknamed the ‘Chuckling lizards of Chabua’! Invisible among the wooden rafters of an ancient lofty building, I never did get to meet them face-to-face. I was told they were tiny, shy creatures. But what they lacked in size they made up for in volume! They chuckled, chirped and chattered noisily the night long, every night; drowning our conversation with their mirth. They certainly seemed to have an enviable cache of humorous tales and anecdotes!
It was a relief through those turbulent times to return home, where my mother-in-law kept a scrupulously gecko-free house. However, my illusions were destined to be shattered. As we sat sipping a glass of Pa’s excellent after-dinner brandy one evening, I found a pair of beady eyes under the fridge watching the family reunion with loving eyes. I sprang onto a sofa in a trice, not waiting for it to join the family tête-a-tête! And there I spent the rest of the evening with my feet propped up and my sari wrapped tightly around me, till it was safely escorted out!
When geckos walk the earth
A sensible precaution, I assure you. For strange things are known to happen when dragons (or their descendants) walk the earth. This tragic love story will convince all non-believers.
This was way back in the swinging seventies. A young man (let’s call him Ray) dressed nattily in the fashionable bell-bottoms of the day, took the girl of his dreams to the movies. As the lights dimmed and romance blossomed onscreen, he reached for the hand he hoped to call his. But unknown to him, a fallen gecko lurked in the dark aisles. By the simple strategy of crawling up his wide trouser leg, it changed Ray’s fortunes forever. Though Ray has since became a lifelong devotee of drainpipe trousers; Cupid has not glanced his way again. Ray lives his bleak life in broken-hearted bachelorhood!
All this goes to prove my point. Beware the gecko on the wall. And the one which has fallen off it!
