more drastic means of controlling
their populations. These include: clobbering them
with shoes, shooting them with BB guns, and dousing
them with petrol and setting them on fire (don’t
try this near a gas oven or you and your nemesis will
both go up in flames).
Most people justify their fear
of lizards on religious grounds: they claim that lizards
are makruh and therefore
it is a legal, if not a downright religious obligation,
to kill them, I am sure God never intended the tortures
described above, however. Other people claim that
lizards are highly poisonous and by getting rid of
them they are doing mankind a favour. Who hasn’t
heard the story about the lizards falling into a vat
of milk which was drunk by twenty one members of the
same family, who then had to be rushed to the hospital
to have their stomachs pumped? At least ten different
people, none of whom could remember the family’s
names, whereabouts, or any other details. Either we
have all heard the same myth or that family became
so embarrassed at being outdone by a lizard that they
changed their names, had plastic surgery, and entered
the Witness Protection Programme.
The only positive story I have
ever heard about lizards is that if one falls on your
head, you will become a king or queen. This was probably
made up in order to console the person having hysterics
after the lizards fell on his or her head, and is
of little solace to the modern day. Pakistani since
we do not live in a democracy. Besides, you are far
less likely to have a lizard fall on your head than
to find one crawling up your pants leg while you are
getting dressed in the morning.
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