Slithering Lives

My blog friend Anuradha Shankar  , who is an avid traveller, travel writer, photographer and reader, recently acquired a new camera , and took some amazing shots of lizards in her garden. Of the standard old middle class garden lizard, and also of some Gen Next lizards. 

Somehow the stoic expression on the face of the older lizard, its attitude of learning to make do with whatever available, and the  posh attitude of the Gen next fellow, on top of the ledge,  reminded me of Mumbai.  And some yogic asanas .

(All photos bt Anuradha Shankar)

Sign of the times.

He slithers,
homeless,
across the collapsed fence
ignoring the
rust
and the surrounding jungle
of dehydrated plants
fallen in holes.

Lizard Yoga classes
happening,
and it gets
more and more difficult
in this old age 
to reach in time
with the
cracks and pokes
and hurtful rust.

And so he stops,
hands resting
next to shoulders,
stretches and lifts himself
in a Bhujangaasan,
beseeching the Lord.

Watched
by a proud denizen
on a
redeveloped
highrise stone terrace,
also going for Lizard Yoga,
togged out
in a moddish red bodysuit,
proud
to have made it
up here
by hook
and mostly by crook,
and unsuccessfully
trying a Mayuraasan
to show it...

And a butterfly
flying just out of reach
of the younger Lizard,
flaps its wings,
alights on a leaf
and shakes its head
saying,
"They dont make Lizards
like the old ones
any more...."