August 5, 2004

A majority of women are afraid of creepy, crawly things. Ambreen Ishrat writes about her phobia of lizards

If there is one word powerful enough to jolt you, make you leave whatever you are doing and jump onto the nearest piece of furniture, then it has to be the six lettered word l-i-z-a-r-d. The word creates a reaction similar to that of fire, or even worse.

This sort of reaction is admittedly gender specific. While men are mostly unaffected by this word, for women it spells disaster. Just saying the word can startle them, and unleash a series of screams. They tend to react first and ask later: “But where is the chhipkali?”

It’s true that not all women are scared of house lizards. But roughly speaking, 65 per cent of them are petrified of this reptile to the extent of being phobic. I belong to this 65 per cent of the population as I have a serious phobia of lizards. In spite of my disdain and refusal to become part of any reaction that can be termed as ‘typical female’, this is one impulse that I can’t seem to control.

I have inherited my lizard phobia from my mother’s side and continue to get haunted by it every year all summer long. Initially, I used to refuse to sit, eat or sleep in the same room where a lizard happened to be, the situation is a bit under control now. Nevertheless, I can’t help my knee jerk reaction whenever the word ‘lizard’ is mentioned.

I admit that lizards like all other creepy things, are God’s creatures, and they have a place in our ecological system. Nevertheless, in my opinion their place is outside and not inside the house; and of all places certainly not in the kitchen and bedroom. I guess I have got territorial issues with the creature. Lizzy is a cold blooded reptile having a strange attraction for the indoors.

Have you ever had your heart jump in your mouth when you suddenly lifted your head towards the ceiling and discovered a lizard looking down at you? Lizards crawl anywhere they like which includes floors, surfaces, furniture and carpet. I once discovered a fat lizard having a joyride in my colleague’s car. Needless to say that my joyride in her car lasted only till the discovery, after that I chose to be on foot.

While all other four-legged creatures such as dogs, cats, rats, etc, show respect to the the broom; no amount of brandishing can deter a lizard. Motionless, it will defiantly keep staring at you with its beady eyes, refusing to budge an inch. But once you are gone to get some male help, it quickly disappears behind the wall painting or the clock or the cupboard, making you look like a paranoid whistleblower.

While my father and brother may snigger all they can, when my mother and I scream “Red alert! Lizzy in the kitchen!”, it has serious connotations. It always means: “Lizard-in-the-kitchen-so-there-won’t be-any-dinner-unless-you-kill-it!” My brother who is fond of theorizing everything has a theory in Lizzy’s defence i.e., lizards in the house are good, as they kill bugs like bees, spiders and mosquitoes. There is no need to kill them as the cat in turn would take care of the lizard by eating it; thus bringing the ecological cycle to a full circle. Amazing observation indeed.

But in reality, the lizard just doesn’t go away, nor do the bugs. They all stay in perfect harmony, under the same room and wreak havoc on the fragile nerves of women like me. My father initially didn’t used to pay much attention to my mother’s larger than life reptilian fear. But when I began exhibiting the same symptoms as hers, he had to start making serious efforts in killing lizards. He just couldn’t take two screaming women at the same time.That’s why of all the qualities I would admire in my ideal man, the ability to kill a lizard without grimacing on the feminine plight would be right at the top of the list. This is as important as being brainy, brawny and sensitive. What an impossible combination to seek in a man. No wonder I am still single.

A lizard in a room full of ladies can cause collective mass hysteria. Similarly, a class room has the perfect potential, where even a cheap plastic lizard can cause havoc. I recall my early days in the embassy-run school in the Middle East, where sudden appearance of scorpions, lizards and chameleons was not an unlikely event. Initially, the sudden popping up of a lizard was considered a big enough incident to evacuate the room and continue with the rest of the lesson in the library, or better enough to have the rest of the period off.

The lizard-affected class would be looked up by the rest of the school as the ‘lucky class’. Ofcourse this practice couldn’t continue for long, as alas all good things come to an end. Almost every day, two or three classes began enacting the lizard hoax. The principal then intervened and decided that no class would be abandoned no matter what went on, even if it meant that half of the class i.e., the girls would be sitting on their desks. And what was the teacher supposed to do? Ofcourse she, too, ended up on her desk..

This situation in turn had all the boys flexing their muscles hunting the lizards down, then holding it by the tail and brandishing it in front of the half hysterical girls. Even the round of punishments later couldn’t dampen the glee of these action-deprived boys. Rigorous fumigation took care of many of the slimy friends of the boys, such as scorpions, cockroaches, rodents as well as bumble bees. But the boys later came up with plastic lizards, which they introduced to different teachers in alternate semesters.

During my teaching days, I, too, was at the receiving end of this prank in a girls class. But as soon as I recovered my wits, I threw back the misleading piece of plastic on my female students and they ended up screaming themselves. Who says teachers can’t have fun?

It is also a fact that there are many women who are not scared of lizards and some are even capable of killing them. Being a woman and not being scared of a lizard strikes me as an odd trait.

On a serious note; conditions, fears and phobias are elements of our inherent personality. Then there are the choices that we make, which regulate our fears and phobias that determine the course of our personality.

Having a fear, condition or phobia is one thing, while accepting and facing it is another thing; a conscious choice. Therefore, like the many things in my personality that I am working upon, accepting and controlling my phobia is a part of it. There are days when there is no one to help you out with things and you have to chase your own demons and fight your own battles. These days I am trying to make peace with one of God’s creatures by managing to stay in the same room. It takes baby steps in doing anything and one day I know that I will be there.

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