caught my first skink today. it approached me when i was having my lunch. why does it seem to me like these guys deliberately come to me as if for some purpose?
it approached with caution but had absolutely no regard for us ten odd human beings busy in conversation (the nearer shore about the pioneering use of cocunut oil derived biofuel as the jet-driving fuel of virgin airways and the farther shore, one can assume, about oils, drives, virgins, and parting ways). nature has selected these creatures to be wary of the mynah, the rat and the occasional foot. nature has not selected these creatures to watch out for the shrieking, shivering babes (and dudes) sporting rat-fed sleeves (yes, dudes) and a neo-modern loud attitude. which is where i think nature commited a big blunder. i am neither a rat-fed sleaze nor am i a neo-modern louse and i caught it with a lunge. what lunch? now the beauty was in my formidable grasp and its scales frictioned to reveal the luster of its life. i was having the time of my life. i beckoned ravi kiran (who i consider a close associate of mine because of his extraordinary temperament, may be it's a condition, i might not know, and who had wandered off to indulge himself in some petty girlwatching group activity) towards me to share the plunder. he was good and even touched the skink. the skink was lustrous brown, a bit like bronze, and a ten centimeter ripple. it was molting. and i learnt, the skink does not bite and it does not attempt to. madras paati says "onaan kadicha oru nimisham; arana kadicha ara nimisham". i proved the first wrong 3 years ago and the second today. by the way, garden lizards do bite. i placed the skink on the lush green useless eye-sore of a lawn in front of the IST building and contemplated on the scope of the event.
