Lizards are common reptiles that are found roaming through the walls and from one cranny or nook to another one in a house. Meanwhile, various kinds of beliefs or, rather say superstitions, are associated with the falling of lizards on the bodies of human beings in India. In fact, there is a study or a branch of astrology called Gauli Shastra which determines the fate of human beings based on the falling of lizards on different parts of the body. However, no form of beliefs of falling of a lizard that is heard by word-of-mouth today is said to be authentic as people forms opinions according to their own thoughts and the talks they have heard from their close ones.
One of the interesting stories about the contrasting beliefs regarding the falling of lizard on a human body is derived from a funny incident that happened with the Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik way back in 2009. After a house lizard fell on Patnaik’s head at his residence while seeing off a well-known political leader Prasanna Acharya, he became nervous as the sign of the reptile falling on the head is generally considered as a bad omen and is believed to be a foreteller of the approaching of death. However, the members of the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) party thought to consult an almanac to analyse about Patnaik’s future according to the falling of the lizard. Therefore, the widely known almanac Kohinoor Panjika was brought and it was found there that the falling of a lizard on the top of a person’s head gives him / her Raja Yoga or the gain of power. Although it might have been shunned by many as some theory about ridiculous superstitious beliefs, the surprise came when Patnaik stupendously won the elections and was sworn as the Chief Minister of Odisha. The fact that the interestingly ridiculous prediction about the lizard falling on top of Patnaik’s head turned to be an exact depiction made everyone curious and ponder over the turn of events.
Meanwhile, there is also another belief that touching the gold and silver plated lizards in the Varadharaja Perumal Temple located at Tamil Nadu’s Kanchipuram would take away all the negative impacts that may befall if a lizard had fallen or is about to drop on a person’s body in his / her life. Moreover, there is also a thought that touching the two lizard statues inside the temple while uttering or thinking of the name of Lord Vishnu would provide happiness and success to a person. The story of the good luck behind the two lizards is found in the Hindu mythology. The mythological tale says that two disciples of Sage Gautama were once cursed by him when they had unknowingly presented him with a jar of water having two lizards in it. Enraged with their careless act and thinking it to be an insult, the sage cursed his students to become lizards. On asking for forgiveness, the students were asked to go to the Varadharaja Perumal Temple and perform penance there to Lord Vishnu. After performing prayers and pleasing Lord Vishnu, He blessed them with liberation and turned their mortal bodies into the gold and silver plated lizards and then declared that those who visit the temple should also touch and worship the two lizards which will help in removing all sins.
In spite of all the superstitions and beliefs associated with lizards, the reality is that most of the people consider this reptile to be an unwelcome sight in their houses and would be afraid to come close to the wall where it is lurking. Some of the feelings that we get when we spot a lizard in our house are-
Dreading to bring the thing we want without hampering the pesky creature
The most common thought that crosses our mind whenever we see a lizard is whether we can get the thing we badly wanted without disturbing the reptile that is perching on the wall. Therefore, we ensure that our eyes never lose sight of that pesky creature while strolling carefully across the floor to get that needful item from the cupboard. Moreover, once we reach the destination to get our desired possession, we are on full alert to make sure that the lizard does not fall by any chance upon our body and move away as fast as we can once our hands grab the item. Unfortunately, if we find the lizard to be making a slight movement, we try to move away from the place without screaming but if we fail to control our sense of fear and give a little shout, some earful or a lecture from the rest of family members is always on the card or we need to even face it.
An imaginary crawling sensation on the body
When we roam around the house listening to music or doing some errands, our anger might rise the moment we see a lizard passing across us by the wall. If the lizard did not even come in contact with us, our fickle minds does not stop us from imagining the unreal feel of some creepy crawling over the body. Therefore, we check our surroundings carefully whenever we see a lizard passing by us and breath sighs of relief only when the reptile is at a far and safe distance from us.
The unwanted interruption in our hard cleaning chores
Our anger sometimes reaches its peak whenever we catch sight of a lizard after struggling with cleaning our house thoroughly for some time. The moment our eyes fall upon the lizard after a hard duration of scrubbing the floors, walls and tables of the house, we feel that our luck is bad as some pests had to ruin our hard work we had carried out so religiously. Meanwhile, if we see a lizard when we are on the task of cleaning the house, we tend to get angrier because we feel that more work of dusting or scrubbing should be done especially in the corners until our house and cupboards is squeakily cleaned of all the tiresome pests.
The ultimate source of making everything unhygienic
If a lizard unfortunately falls on our body, we get extremely irritated as we feel that the presence of the reptile has turned our washed clothes unhygienic. Moreover, the fall of a lizard on our bodies just after bath can made our moods worse. The sight also of a lizard passing over our neatly folded clothes on a cupboard or over the footwear and air tight containers can also be the number one disruptor of our mental peace.
The fickle thoughts on the fall of a lizard on body
Some of us might think highly of the meaning behind the movement of a lizard. If we do not know about the various beliefs that are associated with a lizard, we might ask some known person about it depending upon the level of bravery and curiosity. However, some of us might also hesitate in asking about our superstitious thoughts to others thinking of feeling like a fool thereby forming our own opinion about it.
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