Yesterday night, a big fat lizard (okay a little exaggeration here I admit) appeared suddenly from behind the wall clock. A few shrieks and screams from the householders later, we ran to open the window, and tried to shoo him out. The end game was clear. Armed with a broom, a stick, and a strict non-violence policy, we had to keep tapping on the walls and direct him to the opening. Every few seconds, when he was so close to getting out, he would turn last minute and scurry back into the room in another direction. After 10 minutes of stick tapping, furniture moving and light toggling, he finally scrambled out. Phew. Peace. We could now sleep at ease. No worry of a lizard falling down on our faces while asleep.
But this was just one lizard. Who knows if there are any others hidden in the darkness?
The episode couldn’t stop me from thinking about the similarities to life. When a problem hits us, we tend to focus all our energies on it. We run behind it like the rest of the world has stopped. We may forget that we have a room or even a house full of space, with wonderful people and things (and one tiny lizard). If we are unable to drive the problem away, then we keep worrying about it, often unable to sleep. Even when the problem is gone, we wonder if there might be other problems lurking nearby.
The gecko is quite common in India. Ask any villager how to tackle them, and they will tell you that they don’t even think twice about the reptile. The lizards help control the insect population, always just mind their own business, and often leave mysteriously (through some orifice) at sunlight, the same mysterious way they made their way in, in the first place.
The villagers’ behaviour is no different from that of a realized soul when it comes to tackling problems in life. They exist, they are acknowledged and then they are wilfully forgotten, because the focus has already shifted back to the good.