Skip to main content

Live... and let live

 Conducting a research on lizards?        
 Short on them??
 Feel free to drop into my office-cum-study. At any point of time, you'll find at least one on the  wall.

 Right now, a little one is playing 'catch-me-if-you-can' with an adult!



Actually, the word 'lizard' sounds so unemotional and scientific. I prefer the Hindi chipkali... it sounds slimy and creepy - and, suits the creature better!

 Not that I haven't tried to chase the chipkalis away....I have tried every kind of repellant - from the commercially available stuff to placing peacock feathers at vantage points... and failed.

Now, my teenager tells me that her friend has a surefire solution - to write Kaanchi Maharaja all over the walls - mind you, it should be written in Kannada with chalk!

After having a good laugh (alone) at this one, I began to wonder..................................................

Maybe, lizards find it hard to move over chalk-dust?
If so, writing 'Stupid Chipkali' should work just as well as ಕಾಂಚಿ ಮಹಾರಾಜ!  Or, perhaps some artistic chalk-doodle all over the wall!

Well! I will not write on the walls, and, I see a major drawback with the last one - within a few days, the art will disintegrate and you-know-who will have the unpleasant task of cleaning the walls/ re-doing the art-work!

Some years ago, I had read an article by Maneka Gandhi... about why one should be nice to the chipkalis... They keep the house free from cockroaches, spiders and other keeday-makoday by eating them and are thus good for the general well-being of the human home.

 Since she is right, I have adopted her attitude. It is an attitude that we  'old - B'loreans' can sum up without beating round the bush....  'Swalpa adjust maadi' !!

Comments

  1. Too right:)) We have many of them all over the walls:) In the panchanga, there used to be two pages which used to tell us what would happen if a chipkali fell on different parts of our body:)) I don't know if those pages are there now:))))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thankfully, none have fallen on any of us!! Touch wood!!!!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ash gourd & beliefs

Whenever a farmer comes to my doorstep selling vegetables, I buy them. The other day, one of the regulars dropped in. This time, he had only ash gourds. Since my own ash gourd vine was looking good, I had to tell him that I didn't want any. He then expressed a desire to see the vine - to check out the variety, etc... Soon after seeing it, he told me that the vine would produce only one gourd and that I should be offering it to some temple instead of using it! Well! I hadn't heard this one before! Though nobody knew why, every single person advised me against using the ash gourd if it turned out to be the only yield from that vine. And, 'Give it to some temple' was the final line that everyone added! You know, as far as vegetables and beliefs go, the ash gourd is one that has many attached to it... each one of them, meaningless and without logic. My mother believed that a whole ash gourd should not be cut with a knife by people whose parents were alive. Fortunat

Ganesha's water-pot!

You will not find this place on the tourists' list of places to visit in Chikmaglur. However, you'll find it on my list of favourite places in Chikmaglur. Let me take you there..... A half-an-hour's drive from home will take us to the not-so-sleepy town of Koppa. From here, onto  the road to Kesave village.  About 3-4 kms on this road, to the right - a rusty arch and the mud track beyond welcome us. Blink, and we'll miss the place! We are now on private property. This part of the estate is open to all. Because, it is here that the river Braahmi has her origins. The Braahmi is a small tributary of the river Tunga. Infact, she joins the Tunga within 20 kms. from her place of birth. The presence of an idol of the elephant-headed God lends some piety to the place.    Someone has done a neat job -  making it seem like the water is gushing out of a water-pot. This, and the presence of God Ganesh... the place is locally known as 'KamanDala Ganapati'. Lik

Temple Ponds

Temple ponds, or, 'Pushkarni's are such an integral part of ancient temples. I just can't get over the idea as well as the efforts that must have been made to build them.  Often, these ponds are quite polluted. But for the presence of some stagnant water, some of them look like dump yards :(  So, it was a pleasure to come across this clean one at the Janardhana Swami Temple at Yermalu on the Udupi- M'lore highway. Dakshina Kannada & Udupi districts can be called the temple districts of the world- there are so many temples that one would need a lifetime to cover all of them! So, not surprisingly, this was our first visit to this temple. If the M-S wedding didn't take place here, we would have missed this one. The idol here was installed by Saint Madhavacharya- social reformer & philosopher who lived 700 years ago. This pond has obviously been renovated since, but, surely, the origins date back to the 13th century, or, earlier? You know, according to t