He was just about 3 centimeters in length. Yep, this browning baby lizard, a juvenile, left to fend for himself – as most reptilian mums do after they hatch their clutch. I had just moved into this tiny two room tiled house with crumbling walls. Ancient really, this place is, I thought. Nails could be just pushed into the wall by hands, hammers were redundant. Beneath this coat of whitewash, was a dark grey brown mud wall. The use of fine clay, plentiful and cheap  in this part of India (famed for its tile factories) was widespread in the forties and fifties when this house was probably built. The clay is mixed with calcium and jaggery (yes, jaggery!) then made into a viscid mess which makes good walls, sturdy and capable of withstanding the furies of the monsoons. Only, the walls cannot support heavy roofs, thus a grid of slats, supporting rows of tiles tops this mud house. Only moist days, the walls weep, with driblets of precipitation tracking down. This was interesting for me personally, as I’ve always wondered how some ‘idols’ are miraculously claimed to shed tears – probably this combination of materials does , in appropriate climatic conditions, exude absorbed moisture from heavy atmospheric humidity.

Guess, I am deviating here, so lets get back to the baby lizard. I saw him on my bedroom wall, awaiting insects that was drawn by a single 60 watt filament bulb that jutted at an angle from the wall. Thus we continued our symbiosis: promptly as 6 PM he’d get ready to emerge from his cranny, as soon as I switched on the light. His presence was quite reassuring I must ad. He frenetically scurried after flapping moths, snapping them, sometimes even falling off the wall in his scramble. Soon though he was becoming strong and bigger, till he almost was around 10 centimeters long. He gorged himself endlessly when termites whizzed the bulb on pre-monsoon nights.

My dog, Becker, had the gecko, who I named T. Rex, fixed permanently in his sights and when one night he fell on the floor losing his footing trying to grab an outsized dragonfly, Becker promptly dashed towards Rex and stamped him with his forepaw. Before I could shoo the dog off, I saw the damage he had already done – T Rex had scooted under the cot, but the paw jab had left him tail-less. I saw a two centimeter long tail tip writing limply and felt quite upset. I consoled myself in the knowledge that most lizards have a self defense mechanism through which they can, voluntarily, amputate the terminal segment of their tail – thanks to a peculiar feature in their coccygeal vertebrae which allows the tail to be discarded at will. The limp active piece of tail, usually distracts the hunter momentarily, a moment that is enough for the tail’s former owner, to escape. Of course, I did not tell Becker all the anatomical oddities of reptilian caudal ends, lest he sleep with a clear conscience – I waved my index finger at his nose chastising him for truncating T. Rex’s linear dimensions.

After a couple of days of hiatus, Rex was back in his haunt grabbing insects, his rounded tail tip soon grew into a fine healthy new tail (another natural endowment the lizards are gifted with). His new tails color mismatched the rest of his body, but he didn’t mind the dichromatic morphology he had now acquired. He merrily pounced and polished off the winged ones that orbited the bulb, till at times he looked quite like a spindle, with a huge center and two tapering ends (each with one color)

Alas, a few months ago, I shifted jobs, and was, as a deal, given a more spacious and concrete walled house to which I moved. I looked at Rex as he sinuously stole towards his last supper and felt heartbroken. Tomorrow night, as he emerges from his nook, no bulb will glow in this room. This house will be empty, unlit and vacant. I felt terrible – I had come to love this gutsy character – I still miss T. Rex. My dog misses him too, for he squats beside me staring at the moths that spin around the wall lamp, waiting for his twin - tone friend to emerge. The room where I am using now has double distemper coated pastel shade paint and insects hover round the well lit interior in droves – but, no lizards here. No crannies or corners for the likes of Rex to hide and hibernate in these modern constructions. Wonder how he manages now. The last time I drove past the former residence I noticed it looked quite inky dark, dank and desolate.

Sorry T Rex, I had to move, for unlike you, nature has not gifted me with a part of me I can leave behind – I have to go, whole, bag and baggage when the call comes. But, if it means anything to you, maybe not physically, I have left my soul and spirit to comfort you. Hang on Rex, hang on. Who knows, a new occupant could move in tomorrow, and he may fix a new wall lamp (hopefully, a 100 watt one) and who knows, mercifully,he may not like dogs.