One of my morning chores, ever since I was about ten, was to buy milk from the dairy a short walk down the street. I would usually go around 5:30 am and get the two bottles we needed every day. That day, I bought the bottles as usual and was entering the gate when a very soft mewl caught my ears. It was so faint that I almost didn’t hear it. Then, the sound came again—a soft, distressed plaintive mewl of a kitten. I stopped. Then, I saw her!
She was sitting in the corner of the doorway—the huge door with its shadow obliterating her unless one actually peered into the corner. She was the tiniest, fluffiest kitten—milky white with tiny black ears and an amazingly bushy black tail. She was looking up at me. I crouched down and picked her up. She fitted snugly into the palm of my hand. When I stepped back from the corner, the light fell on her eyes and I stared. My heart gave a painful jolt and my throat felt strangely tight at the silent appeal in her eyes. I have never seen eyes so filled with need, begging to be accepted, surrendering to me so completely. They were the most startling shade of blue—as if someone had dipped their fingers into a bottle of royal blue chelpark and smudged them on to her tiny white face. We had a number of cats—five to be exact. I had seen cats with emerald green eyes, gold flecked ones, speckled yellow ones, but never one with such blue eyes—eyes that pulled at something in my soul till it hurt.
I held her up close to my face and gently rubbed her against my cheek. She gave a soft, soundless mew. She was mine from that moment. I took her upstairs and showed her to Ma and Baba. Ma immediately got a saucer of lukewarm milk and asked me to feed her. I went to my room and sat down on the floor with her on my lap and the saucer in my hand. Then, I felt her trembling. Her tiny, soft body was shuddering in my palm. Baba, who had come with me, said that she was probably suffering from shock. We didn’t know how she had come to our doorstep—whether someone had abandoned her or she had wandered away. I held her close to my chest, crooning senseless words, rubbing my cheeks against her delicate head. Then, when she had calmed down, I dipped cotton wool in the milk and squeezed the drops into her mouth. She took to this mode of feeding and soon the saucer was empty.
In those initial days, Cat as I called her influenced by Alice in Wonderland, would not get off my lap. Physical contact with me was the most important source of security for her. Every time I put her down, she would mewl forlornly and would wind herself around my ankles, begging to be picked up. I wonder what kind of trauma she had gone through before she came to us that made her so fearful. I got used to carrying her around wherever I went, cradling her in the crook of my arm while eating, and sitting with her in the hollow of my lap when I read. She would sleep curled on my pillow, pressed as close to my head as possible, her soft breath blowing the tendrils of hair around my ear. Every time I tried to turn over, she would wake up in alarm—her fear of desertion making her dig in her tiny claws into my neck or cheeks. I got used to sleeping with my palm covering her, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her belly. Sometimes, while she slept, her breathing would become really fast and erratic. I wondered if she dreamt of fearful stuff, if she had nightmares that agitated her so. I also got used to waking up at intervals to take Cat out for a pee. This I learned to do after waking up the first day at the trickle of warm water down my neck and all over my cheeks.
It took Cat close to a week to accept that I would not abandon her even if I did put her down temporarily. She would prance ahead two or three steps, constantly looking around to see if I was there. Gradually, her personality emerged. She turned out to be as mischievous as only kittens can be and immensely lovable. I would spend hours just watching her. Her favourite sport at that stage was to jump up and try to reach the key chain dangling from my cupboard. I had to just swing the chain a bit to make Cat go completely berserk. She would jump up, fall far short of the target, and flop back on her behind undeterred. This continued for some days till she discovered another game that left me a little battered.
I was in the habit of sitting on my bed, leaning against the wall with legs stretched out in front of me, and reading. Cat would be on my lap or running in circles on the bed around me. One day, I don’t know why, I was flexing my toes. Cat was curled up in the hollow of my lap looking around when she spotted my toes moving. She sprang up with her ears perked up and whiskers quivering in anticipation. I had no idea what had attracted her attention, and watched her for the next move. Before I could assimilate what she was about to do, she was on my big toe, clawing at it and worrying it with her paws. I yelped because Cat did have sharp nails and tried to draw in my foot. I pulled her back and set her down next to me. But this Cat would not allow. Here was something she could reach and I was taking away her toy. She tried to get under my knees and reach my toe till I gave up. For the next few days, I had to put up with Cat worrying my toes.
As Cat grew up a little, she began to get toilet trained. This she did on her own. She would mew and wake me up. The first time she did, I thought she was hungry. But the moment I stepped out of the mosquito net with her, she jumped down and went to her corner on the terrace. From then on, I had to just let her out of the mosquito net. She would pee and come back. What she did after coming back was the most endearing. She would never mew and ask to be let in. She would jump up and try to get in, forgetting the net. I think it was a game for her. Her claws of course would get enmeshed and she would dangle from the net and peer at me. I would press my face against her from the inside and kiss her. She loved this. Then, of course, I would untangle her and get her in.
As she grew up, her playfulness decreased but the rest of the habits remained. She continued to sleep on my pillow curled into a semi-circle with her tail tucked under her legs. Now, a full grown cat, Cat occupied most of the pillow, and I had to cling to one edge to stop my head from rolling off. Sometimes, when she wanted to change her position, she would get up from the pillow and curl under my arm or stretch herself on the dip my waist made when I slept on my side. She had a strange habit of leaning against the hollow behind my bent knees and washing herself. All of this meant that I learnt to sleep almost without moving, in as little space as possible, and in the strangest of positions. If I tired to turn over when she had made herself comfortable on some part of my anatomy, I would feel her claws digging gently into my skin in protest.
Cat got used to my routine and knew that I would be gone for most of the morning. She also knew when I was due to come back, and I would find her sitting on the steps, peering down over the railings to see if I was coming. The moment she spotted me, she would race down and I would pick her up like one would a baby. She was my shadow and I can’t remember a day when Cat did not greet me when I came back from school.
She was also fond of exploring the vicinity. She would vanish for hours on end. Sometimes, I would catch a glimpse of her walking along the parapet of the terrace, sometimes peering down inquisitively, with her tail in the air. Once satisfied with her wanderings, she would come back. Then, something momentous happened in Cat’s life. She found a lover in the course of her wanderings. I found out when Cat got pregnant. Her movements became slower, she almost never wanted to get off my lap, and stayed in. I had no clue how long a cat’s gestation lasted and watched her anxiously every day. Then, one day, I was sitting on the floor of our verandah having my evening tea with Ma when Cat came and got into my lap. She kept squirming around and miaowing in distress. At first, I could not fathom what was happening till Ma suddenly said, “I think she is going to deliver.”
I went to my room with Cat, and as instructed by Ma, got old newspapers, soft old pieces of cloth, a bucket with hot water, cotton wool and some old sheets. I sat on the floor with Cat on my lap as she went through her labour, caressing her, talking to her, rubbing her belly. Baba came upstairs and around 8:00 pm that night, Cat gave birth to her first litter—four tiny creatures. One was white like Cat, the other three a patchwork of white, golden brown and black, bearing testimony to their father’s identity. But none of them had Cat’s blue eyes. Cat, too exhausted to do anything but lick her brood clean, watched as I put the kittens in a crate lined with plenty of soft cloth. I lifted her up tenderly and put her in the crate next to them. Immediately, the kittens nuzzled and wriggled their way and started feeding. I had seen a miracle happen that night.
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