The unwelcomed guest

About an hour back, there was a really unbelievably huge and unexplainably ugly lizard in my wing that caused a huge chaos, and led to a not very new, yet a valuable realization, and a huge sigh of relief. The lizard was kinda playing hide-n-seek with the rooms and the wingies when all of them banged on my door and screamed out,” Hey.. A lizard is coming into your room!!!” I immediately, out of reflex, opened my door, and was immediately confronted by a few of my friends with their brooms held high! I realized that they were not joking, and tried to locate where the stupid homeless lizard had gone, when I sadly found that when I had opened my door, it had gotten stuck to the bottom of my door and was struggling to get into my room!!! I jumped and picked my own broom, and there we were, just staring at the obscenely huge struggling lizard, not really knowing how to tackle it, for none of us, especially me, fancied seeing a dead stinking lizard under my door. Since we were all delirious, NO- NOT SCARED, just you know… kinda panicky, I went to ask the didis for help, thinking they might have more experience and might tell us exactly what to do.

FYI, didis are the 24x7 helpers who stay in the girls hostel and their so-called-jobs are to be there for us in case of any required help. Well, as I was saying, they were all gathered in their own common room, knitting sweaters (Lord knows why considering the winter is long gone) and watching a really old Hindi movie. I went there in a delirious hasty state and pleaded and begged them for help. One out of the five maids looked up, and said she didn’t know what to do, and told me to take someone else. Others didn’t even bother to look up from their ‘knitting’ or their ‘fascinating movie scene’. So much for their presence in the hostel!!!

I walked back, and then the rest of the ‘friends-with-brooms’ were standing just where I had left them- right outside my door, keeping an eye on the lizard, though it seemed pretty still, and I was afraid it was dead where I didn’t want it dead!! Of all the places to get stuck! Urgh! Anyways, then we formed strategies, found that it was still alive, very much actually, and slowly maneuvered it out if its hole, into my room and out through the balcony, using a number of brooms and tracking it to its right path and all. Phew! What an exhaustingly nasty business! And ew! What a disgusting reptile!! Even more than the fright of it lying dead under my door, there was a disconcerting thought of it ripping its tail or a limb off and running away, leaving it in my room. The lizard would eventually grow it back. But my room would have been a mess!!

So the main lesson learnt- Didis here are so used to luxurious life of not working at all, and watching TV 24x7 and doing nothing, that these helpers are just not helpers anymore, except if them not helping leads to us learning to help ourselves is the help that they really are here for! And the huge sigh of relief was hence a mixture of the ugly lizard leaving my room whole and alive, and, me leaving this place for good, by the end of this sem, to a place where I hope to God, not to face such useless irritating unhelpful didis ever in my life. But oh well, at the end of it all, the unwanted guest left my room alive, when all the odds were pointing the other way, no thanks to the didis, but all thanks to the wingies-with-brooms!!