The Cat fight

IMAGE : STEVE HARVEY ( UNSPLASH )

      A word of apology to animal activists, the world over. Whatever I write is not meant to hurt the sentiments of any animal, living or dead. It merely stems from a mortal fear of any creature that uses four limbs to navigate any amount of distance. It is an illogical, irrational, inexplicable, abominable syndrome, especially since these poor creatures have never done anything to trouble us. I view it as a case of Karma – we , in the family may have in our last lives terrorized the hell out of some of these creatures , and hence ...

      My story dates back to some hundred years ago, when I was less placid. The central protagonist in the story happened to be a rather esteemed member of the feline race. I say esteemed, gauging by the amount of affection and admiration showered upon it by the other residents of the building. If you ask me, I would say that it was a rather mean looking creature, but I belonged to the minority tribe. The fellow had a huge fan following and if this tale were to occur in today’s times, he may have had his own Instagram account. 

        Life had been running quite smoothly for us, till one fine day, the neighbours in the flat below decided they needed a bigger balcony. This involved an extension of the frontiers of their balcony, such that the roof of the new big balcony now stood some four feet below our bedroom window . I was happy for them. They had ample space now, to lounge and talk to their plants. There however, was a teeny weeny little problem – our feline friend now found it easy enough to hop onto the new balcony roof and gain access to the bedroom of the pretty damsels of the house. Now, while that may not be socially too blasphemous, it was pretty much unacceptable to the sensibilities of the ladies, whose pulse levels fluctuated not to tall, dark , handsome Mills & Boon hero- like men , but to four legged creatures of all shapes and sizes . It took them a while though, to notice the nocturnal visits of our friend .

      I guess, I was the first one to notice it. I woke up one night, to discover something white moving around, very close to the bed that my sisters and I shared. I was not thinking straight and naively assumed that it was a white polythene cover flying about. A few nights later, someone else noticed it - someone less naive than myself and all hell was let loose . Mom and Dad, came running into our room, assuming the worst. Reactions varied. Mom wondered how the blessed creature had entered the room, a couple of others were still palpitating while Dad looked calm as ever. That wasn’t surprising though. His family had always nurtured a penchant for cats and his house in Kerala had never had less than three such creatures at any given time. The victimised ladies came up with a single and simple solution. The bedroom windows were to be kept shut. No arguments would be brooked. Furthermore, since the notorious balcony roof extended itself to one of the windows in Mom and Dad ‘s room , that window too should be shut . Dad looked heavenwards, but we were adamant . 

      The house now resembled the residence of the rich and famous–only from the outside of course. Windows and doors were always tightly shut, as if we were trying to keep out the Paparazzi or something. Peace and sanity reigned, blood pressure levels and pulse rates were normal and life was smooth.  

       The winter months soon set in and the interiors of the house were nice, warm and snug. But if winter is here, can Summer be far behind? That year, the weather gods decided to give Spring a miss and so Summer waltzed in earlier than usual, at its cheerful best. And that, my dear friends, was when the agony began. Home was no longer a cosy haven. Instead, it was unpleasant, hot and suffocating. But we refused to relent. Nothing would make us open those windows. In fact we derived a sadistic pleasure as we harboured visions of the cat waiting outside, desperately trying to enter the house. Dad tried to make us see sense. What harm could a cat possibly do, he argued. He really could not comprehend the kind of idiocy that his offspring were indulging in. But we, the ‘victims’ knew what trauma we had been through . Meanwhile the mercury levels kept soaring and were beginning to take a toll on us . Some solution needed to be reached . 

      A family conference was held one evening, on the terrace. Two uncles, a cousin and the family members attended the conference, while the cat was seen strolling blissfully, along the parapet of the house opposite ours. My father was pretty sure that a mountain was being made out of a mole hill, but at the same time couldn’t bear to see his dear daughters enduring sleepless nights. The dark circles that had gathered around our eyes weren’t a pretty sight. We discussed at length, possible solutions to our predicament. After much brainstorming, we hit upon a rather brilliant solution. A consensus was reached to fix up net shields on our windows. 

      A rather crafty looking carpenter was summoned the next day and deliberations held . He made two surveys of the windows, tugged at his chin and then grunted, before quoting his price. Dad balked a wee bit but then relented when he saw the misery that was writ large on our faces.

    Work began the next day. Our carpenter friend came along with a brother in law of whose existence was hitherto unknown to us. Two days later, our fortress was ready to be opened to the public ( read cat ) . 

     We finally began to breathe. The outside world looked beautiful and once more, after ages, we heard the crows caw. The cat still hung around the building premises and I suspect it even gave us dagger looks each time we passed by . We only grinned victoriously, as we walked past it . We had, after all won the fight !