RUNNING WILD

The dangerous world of exotic pets is growing in India

- SNEHA BHURA

Want to keep a green iguana as a pet? Instruction manuals will ask you to keep a large space ready. The vegetarian lizard can grow up to six feet in a few years—like your own private Godzilla. Native to tropical Americas, these strong, sturdy, and mostly docile reptiles can deal out a bone-shattering blow with their tail when hungry or irritated.

Sheldon D’Souza, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Chembur in Mumbai, reared five grown iguanas in his two-bedroom flat during the lockdown months. At one point, his apartment was home to his mother, father, sister and himself, apart from two ball pythons, one tarantula, four hedgehogs, and the iguanas. “Pythons are useless. Hedgehogs can get aggressive. But nobody is scared of iguanas in my family. Even my dog is comfortable with them,” says D’Souza. They are fed a giant meal of coriander leaves, papayas, bananas, grapes and other vegetables and fruits every morning, lest they start jumping around like petulant little children, ready to bite.

D’Souza, himself, behaves like a child in a candy store in pet shops at Crawford Market. His former girlfriend, he says, would often lose pace with him as he zoomed around looking for exotic animal babies. “Our five-year relationship ended over my pets,” says D’Souza, who knew where his priorities lay.