Musings of a cat lover

Hero, a year and little old

"Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o' fur?"

~ An Irish saying

Cats and I go back a long way. It all started with a bowl of milk for a wandering grey tabby cat in a sultry summer afternoon. This was how we found Jhumri, the veteran girl of our cat family. The consequent generations had funny names too (courtesy me), irrespective of gender - Elli, Biti and Hero. My father was never fond of the brood and much to his chagrin there was always an addition or two every year. With time he became tolerant although he would remain aloof as ever. While my mother would be attentive to their whimperings, my love for them was overwhelming. I would sacrifice my share of fish for the greedy Elli who was the dearest of the lot and would swing and rock Biti's newborns no matter how ridiculous a spectacle it was. I was scratched on countless occasions as a means of retaliation for the suffocative, smothering love. Once I tried to chase off a poor garden lizard who was being stalked by Hero only to end up with a badly sprained leg. This time when I visited my parents, there was a looming emptiness. For the first time in ten years it was a cat-less home. There was no furry bundle cozied up under the blankets or sniffing flowers in the garden or trying desperately to catch its owl tail in circles in the most comic manner. Their absence felt louder and more annoying than the ruckus of meows on the fried fish days.

The other day as we were watching our neighbour's Persian cat, Sam casually remarked, "You must be this only crazy cat lover who doesn't own a cat". Not many would understand how crushing it felt at that moment. I always lament our nomadic lifestyle and how I can never have a cat until we have a permanent home of our own. Or I might just end up as one of those batty old English women sitting by the fireplace reading or embroidering, with a cat curled up in my lap. Sigh!

Tired and bruised!

There are days when you feel broken and torn and everything around you just goes on to contribute to this hard, knotty feeling. Moving to a new place is really tiresome and this was our fourth move in just two years. It has been a week since we moved into our new apartment and I, who is otherwise smart with new places, is struggling to find my way around. The built up lethargy of our longish hotel stay prior to our moving here is showing up. Now when I am back to my mundane do-it-on-your-own life, with no blessed "housekeeping" knocking at the door, I am at my wit's end. Nicknamed "queen of orderliness" by Sam, I find difficult to live up to it in the present circumstances. The 'queen', who loved to cook, now dreads the kitchen because that is where most of the disasters take place. I spill, drop, scatter and even manage to turn on the wrong stove while the pot is sitting on the other. Dinners which I could fix in no time are taking hours with my sluggish pace. I am a complete sight!

While browsing through the gardening isle in Walmart yesterday, I chanced upon this lovely sham bamboo sitting pretty in a ceramic arrangement. The tag said "Let luck shower on you", so there it was on my kitchen window, sipping sunlight through the blinds. I could never understand Feng Shui and the only reason I get lured by these items is because they represent the colourful, exotic Orient. It was simply a fake assurance, something to bring a smile to my careworn face.

But this was not the end to my string of maladies. It also happened to be the much dreaded time for one of these blinding migraine headaches which made things worse. At such times I become this ultra sensitive person who would flinch from any kind of light or noise and would just prefer to lie down in a dark corner with a cold gel pack pressed on the forehead. There was a saviour for my disappointing afternoon in the name of Julie & Julia. I finally got to watch the movie and could relate to Julie in more than one way. Like me she loved to cook and also happened to blog. Like me she too felt that her dreary life had no purpose and that she just lived her days one after the other. The movie cheered me up like any other Meryl Streep starrer does. I felt revived and was looking forward to an evening walk with Sam by the lake side, which happens to be right in front of our apartment. So there I was promising myself to be cheerful and positive, surrounded by dogwood flowers and paddling geese. Everything was perfect until this cute little Dalmatian came along with its owner. Normally pets here are very friendly and well trained. But this one, for no apparent reason, lunged forward at me with a nasty snarl which made me grab on to the hedge behind as a desperate measure. Just then I felt a stabbing pain in my thigh and almost for a second thought the canine had managed to get a chunk off me. Instead it was the fence which I had bumped into hence resulting in a big painful bruise. The puzzled owner just offered a polite American 'sorry' and marched off with her leashed fury.

It has been more than four hours since this harrowing incident and I still wonder what made that dog behave in such a strange manner. I am utterly crushed because I am a major dog lover. I am tired of this horrible day and I want it to end. Without further ado, the best thing would be to go to bed. I might have a perfect sleep with the perfect dream as Dumbledore says "In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own". I hope when I wake up I will find my lost world of order and reign as the 'queen' again.

A darling pet python???

I remember odd bits of a childhood memory when father had once told me about a certain tennis star who had a python for a pet. I can recall the tides of fear and astonishment that had surged inside my little head then. Now almost after 20 years, Sam tells me about an American colleague of his who once had a pet baby python. At first I just brushed aside the conversation as another inscrutable aspect of the American culture. In India we do have domesticated snakes but once the snake charmers catch them, their poison tooth is pulled out which leaves them perfectly harmless. Over centuries and civilizations people have been fascinated with the domesticating of animals and birds, but a pet python simply sounds like a classic oxymoron. But eventually the incident turned out to be quite riveting. This particular python, while a baby, would feed on mice and infant pigs. But as it grew older it refused food and sulked inside its glass cage for days. Its concerned owner took it to a vet to check if everything was alright with the otherwise healthy and happy creature. The vet observed that the python was growing up and wanted more food to satiate its equally growing appetite. As a means of food mechanism, the python scales an image of the shape and the size of its prey as a comparision with its own bulk. This hungry python was actually starving itself so that it could feed on its owner!! The horror struck man was advised by the vet that he should leave his prized pet at the care of the zoo keepers. After this appalling end I could feel a little chill down my spine. Perhaps it's one of those little culture shock moments.

This episode further rings a bell about a certain short story of Khushwant Singh "The Mark of Vishnu" where Gunga Ram, a domestic servant dies a painful death from snake bite. Gunga Ram was illiterate and was therefore unreasonably religious and superstitious. He considered all life forms as sacred, especially the snakes. He regarded the snakes as the choicest of God's creatures and therefore they should not be harmed or attacked. And thus he revered the King cobra that lived in the house yard and every night left a saucerful of milk near his hole. The young boys of the house would often poke fun at Gunga Ram's absurd ways for they knew their science lessons well enough to be fooled by such blind beliefs. One fine day the boys manage to mangle and finally capture the King cobra in a box with the intention of parading him as a mark of their bravado in school. When the science teacher unfastened the box, the hurt and angry cobra darted out in a hissing fury. Gunga Ram, aware of King cobra's fate, had followed the boys to school in order to beg for forgiveness from the snake god. He presented the frenzied snake with his usual saucerful of milk and bowed down as an apologetic gesture. The cobra, furious in its urge to freedom, hissed and then frantically bit Gunga Ram all over his head. Ultimately his veneration for the deadly snake cost him his dear life. Before I digress once again, I would like to observe that it is logical for any creature, when provoked or denied its need, to adopt a defensive behaviour. It is in their very nature to do so. There is always a certain amount of risk involved when one tries to tame harmful creatures. A pet python starving to devour its owner or a captive King cobra paralysing its ardent devotee with his poisonous venom is only natural. Even my cat does not think twice before giving me one of her signature paw marks when I try to get too cuddly with her. She can and does a Garfield at such times! Let animals be animals then...