Lizards have never made it to the top of the pops as far as popularity contests go. Most of us seem revolted by them and automatically assume they are poisonous (even though our wallets and purses may be made of lizard skin!). Some (like the Gila monster and Komodo dragon) are, but certainly not all. We don’t like the way they wriggle and slither and the disconcerting way they blink at us. Certainly, they don’t have the “cuddle appeal” of, say, squirrels, which are just rodents with bushy tails. One of the commonest to have earned a bad rap is the so-called “bloodsucker”. The common garden lizard and I have a rather unfortunate personal history. Years ago, in Bombay, I was given an air gun as a birthday gift and promptly started popping off at every living creature I could spot. Fortunately, my aim was pretty hopeless and my targets well out of range. But one day, I spotted a garden lizard on the branch of a peepul tree. In the manner of the best snipers, I carefully rested my gun on the verandah ledge, squinted down the sights and pulled the trigger. To my surprise, I saw the lizard fall off the branch down into the garden, one floor below. Gun in hand, I ran down triumphantly to check on my “kill”. Alas, it was still alive, if injured. Grimly, I loaded the gun again. Hunters did not abandon wounded animals: everyone knew how dangerous they could be. At virtually point-blank range, I pulled the trigger. The Judas air gun jammed! Again and again. What now? Hammer it on the head with the gun butt? No way. Suddenly, I realised the futility of the exercise. I was not about to cook and eat the lizard. I was not going to mount its head on my bedroom wall as a “trophy” (a stupid idea, even if the victim is a tiger or an elephant). So why had I knocked it off its branch with the stupid gun in the first place? Mercifully, the lizard took me out of my, and its own, misery — and died. But after that, I didn’t point the air gun at any living creature again. But the poor bloodsucker or girgit has really had a bad rap. I’ve been watching one of these little dragons in the garden all of last week. He seems to be a laid-back fellow. (He has a partner too.) He’s a little over a foot long — most of that length is spindly tail — and has this deliciously supercilious, semi-humourous expression on his face, what with those lidded eyes that belongs to the very jaded and very rich. It’s, as if, he knows that you come from the dregs of society, while he had to decline a recent wedding invitation from Buckingham Palace due to a prior engagement. He could be found on top of the torai creeper, sunning himself and chortling quietly at some private joke. His head and shoulders (halfway down his back) were a rich sunburnt red, the sort of grizzled lobster shade that foreign tourists acquire after a couple of days in Goa. Below that, the refulgent blush faded to brownish-beige. He had a charcoal-black patch where his forelegs started — and those legs ended in very fine splinter-like claws. He wore his Red-Indian-chief-like headdress with pride, except that it was made of scales and not feathers.When I crept close to take his picture, he would blink a couple of times, like a duke acknowledging a peasant, and yet do a few push-ups. “Look you weasel; I’m in fine fettle so take your eyes off that slinky little beauty that’s hiding under the leaves: she’s out of your league!” seemed to be his message. This is the time of year when bloodsuckers get romantic — that’s another reason for all the blushing. His partner would lay about a dozen eggs in the soil, which would take a couple of months to hatch. Occasionally, his tongue would flick out at the shadow of a passing bee or fly. Garden lizards live on insects, spiders and larvae and, like all reptiles, are cold-blooded — hence the sunbathing every morning to recharge batteries. But that can be dangerous. Once, while watching another fellow sunning itself on the top of the hedge, I was startled as a shikra suddenly dived down from nowhere, grabbed it and made off. And, as for that supercilious sneer: well you’d have one plastered all over your face, too, if you could claim that your relatives included the Gila monster (poisonous), the nightmarish Komodo dragon, that quick-change artiste, the chameleon, and the enormous ever-smiling salt-water crocodile, just to drop a few names!
