Subtle Showstoppers: Bowled Over by the Monitors in My Yard

My tryst with the common monitor lizard (Varanus bengalensis) began as a twelve-year-old playing cricket with my cousins in Thalavady village, Kerala. While fielding along the banks of the Pamba River flowing behind our house, I often heard a rustling sound followed by a splash. According to my cousins, the source of this mysterious sound was the udumbu (local name for monitor lizard).

Despite annual summer visits to the village in Alappuzha, the udumbu remained an enigma for almost 20 years until I sighted one in 2019. I unexpectedly stumbled upon a monitor lizard (also called a Bengal monitor) basking in a patch of sunlight in front of our house. And, as luck would have it, I saw another individual on the road in front of the house the same afternoon. Larger and bolder, I was able to follow it for around 200 m before it slipped into a canal.

My monitor lizard encounters continued during the second wave of the pandemic in 2021. A brownish-grey juvenile, around a metre long, would often bask in the midday sun on the back porch. Alert to any danger, it would bolt into the backyard as soon as it heard the slapping of my rubber slippers against the stone staircase.

Around noon, when I stepped out of my room for lunch, I was often startled by the sound of crunching leaves as the monitor furiously sprinted towards the river. On other occasions, once I had learned its habits and was careful enough to come down the stairs silently, it would be the lizard’s turn to be alarmed. If it wasn’t too scared, it would eye me suspiciously while ambling towards a large pile of firewood in our neighbour’s backyard. The dark crevices within the pile were the perfect hideout to cool off. 

Some days, I observed the resident lizard inspecting the surroundings with its forked tongue. After it was done with its daily inspection, it would climb over a brick wall and make its way to the adjacent plot overtaken by weeds. When asked about these lizards, Sabu, a local farmer, said, “The udumbu is a harmless creature that minds its own business. People are not wary of them. They help to control the population of insects, rodents, and snakes. The dense riparian vegetation and irrigation channels provide them a haven, allowing their population to flourish”.

Around late afternoon, the lizard would be lounging on the concrete embankment of the river. If I tried to go near, it would slip down into the river and disappear from my view. A few times, another juvenile would join this riverside lounge. “They comb the riverbank for prey such as frogs and snakes,” said our neighbour Ponnamma.

Though I had seen the lizards slipping down the embankment multiple times, I had never seen them swimming in the river. I hit the jackpot one Sunday morning while rowing my kayak through an uninhabited section of the river — a one-metre-long adult was crossing the river. Using its muscular tail to propel itself, it ducked under my kayak before resurfacing close to the opposite bank. Common monitors are excellent swimmers capable of staying submerged for up to 17 minutes.     

Once, a visitor to our house saw a large lizard in our front yard as he opened the gate. I’ve noticed that locals like him tend to see these lizards as part of the landscape and will shoo them away with a gentle wave of the hand as they might a pesky bird (see lead video).

One morning, I came out to the verandah, hearing a commotion. It turned out that a young monitor had fallen into a well in front of our house. Our neighbour, Chakradhar, promptly went down the well to scoop the little fellow out with a bucket. After gently cajoling it to leave the bucket, the strikingly patterned lizard scampered away.

According to Ajith Pisharath, a local politician, “The udumbu population has increased considerably in this area in the past two to three decades. The area under garden crops is decreasing due to the labour shortage, many defunct irrigation channels becoming hideouts for these lizards, and respect for wildlife laws could be possible reasons.”

Common monitor lizards are thriving in Thalavady. I have seen numerous monitors of all sizes in the past five years: young ones, juveniles, and large adults. Bestowed with an ancient aura and irreplaceable swagger, the adults leave me in complete awe every single time. Their abundance in the village is a testament to the monitor lizard’s remarkable adaptability and the local people’s acceptance of these reptiles as a natural part of the environment.