Sunday, July 31, 2016

Sweetie's story--to be continued

Sweetie's story will be continued and published when it is complete--the first four parts can be read here as an introduction.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Sweetie's story--4

I hadn’t planned anything for the kitties future. I had presumed they would gradually wander off with Cookie, and I would feed them if they visited, just as I fed other cats. But of course, these were different as they were inside.
My small apartment had two decent sized rooms with a small front room that connected them. Outside on the terrace was the kitchen and bathing bathroom. It was the type of residence that used to be called a ‘barsati’, barsat meaning rain, built in a limited space at the top of a building. Cookie’s loud miaows at night were disturbing my sleep. She also used to jump on me. At this time I was writing my second book, revising the first for a new edition, and working part-time as an editor. But work was being hampered by my trying to take care of Cookie and the kittens. I left them one large room and the front room, and shut them out of my bedroom at night. Was Cookie upset? On 29 May she took all the kitties away, carrying each one. They were now quite large, and she had to lift her head up to get their feet of the ground. I tried to stop her but she wouldn’t listen. The heat was still tremendous, and she took half an hour carrying away each kitten, before coming back for the next. And then she returned without them and started yowling. Had she lost them all?
The next couple of months were a saga of kittens going away, coming back, getting lost etc. On the 30th Cookie brought back one kitten. Where were the rest? She came twice to feed it, and in the evening carried it away again. On 8th June, all were back. On the 10th, I left for another trip, returned on the 14th--no kitties again. 17th, one kitty was back. Now I think it is time to describe them, with the names I gave them later on. Snowy--a white boy, with long hair and a few black patches. Sweetie--white and pale grey; Goldy--with gold and grey patches on white, very pretty; Sugar, white with short hair and dark grey patches. Cookie was still carrying them around, but I ‘ll just describe one instance a couple of days later, when I had to rescue Sweetie.
To write this I looked up my diary for that year, which had all the dates and details of their comings and goings! The kitty who was back here on the 17th, was Snowy. Nineteenth night it began raining. I woke in the night and found one more kitty, Goldy, here. But two were still missing and it poured with rain. In the morning I could hear one kitty crying. I looked out but couldn’t see anything. Then Cookie arrived, heard it, and was off in a flash. Looking through the window I saw she had fished it out of a muddy drain--she was trying to pick it up when an old woman downstairs started chasing her with a stick. I quickly went down in the slush and drizzle but had to walk around two buildings to reach the back where they were. Sweetie, covered in wet mud looked miserable. Cookie, from a safe distance, was yelling at old woman who was waving a long stick at her. I grabbed wet and muddy Sweetie. Seeing her safe, Cookie vanished. Whenever in later years the old lady saw Sweetie in her carrier ready to travel with me, she would say--this is the same cat from that dirty drain?
By the time I reached upstairs, Cookie had brought Sugar back too. Sweetie was wiped, dried and wrapped in a shawl and went to sleep.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Sweetie's story--3


And Sweetie is born!
The months passed, the seasons changed, and winter approached. Cookie started spending time inside, sleeping under the quilt on my bed in the early morning. Mister was no longer coming every day, and was somehow looking old. Then again it was spring and early summer, and in March I began to notice Cookie growing fatter. Pregnant? Surely she was too young. I had never had an indoor cat, I still had a lot to learn about cats. In a residential school where I had taught at one time, I took care of a cat I named Puchy. More on him later. And in this same Delhi residence I had a close bond with an orange male I named Chou. After a car accident, he did not survive.
I couldn’t keep Cookie inside all the time. She liked to wander and to hunt, and in addition I had to travel, and there was no one to look after any cat when I was away. Soon it was April 2003. On the 17th of April Cookie came to me meowing in a strange way. I opened the door to let her in, she ran under the bed, got onto a suitcase there, and very soon had four kittens. I peaked underneath and saw little wiggly tails. One of them was my Sweetie, but I hadn’t named her then, nor did I intend to keep her.
On the 20th I had to go on a trip I could not postpone. What was I to do with them? After a lot of anxiety and thought I decided it was best to leave them there. I requested R, my daily maid to feed Cookie cat food every day. She did not like cats, but reluctantly promised. Then I asked both her and my landlady who lived downstairs to ensure that one window was left open. That way Cookie could go out, come back whenever she liked, and the kitties would be safe inside. I was really worried that someone would shut the window and Cookie may not be able to enter, and the kitties would not survive, but that was the best I could do. By this time I had seen that there were four little ones.
I left on the 20th and returned after ten days. By some miracle, everything was fine. R had fed Cookie, because, she said, she was a mother, taking such good care of the little ones, that she felt compassionate towards her. My instructions had been followed and the window had been left open. All four kitties were safe under the bed. And wonderful Cookie had kept them and the whole area absolutely clean. There was not one spot or drop of anything.
They were all safe, but Cookie looked weak and thin, four kitties sucking were draining her strength, I planned to feed her more. And having them inside was becoming a problem, as Cookie would wander in and out and jump on me in the middle of the night. By 17th May, at one month old, they were just able to walk. The heat was rising, and it was already 43 C. I didn’t have an AC, there was a big cooler in the window, but I couldn’t use it as that was the window Cookie need to go in and out of. I bought a smaller one to keep inside the room. [a cooler is a device with a fan, matting, and a water tank that installed in a window cools very well in dry heat].

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Sweetie's story--2


Ma Fluffy arrived on the 5th day. The kitties rushed to greet her with little mews. She too gave them soft meows and licked them. She lay down to let them feed, and I put a bowl of food for her, and went inside, happy that she was back. I came out again when I heard some different, sharp meows. What was this? It was Fluffy meowing. She was walking away, looking over her shoulder, and telling them to follow. Six-week-old kittens can run and jump, but they aren’t very good at climbing. I hadn’t seen how she brought them, whether she had carried each one, or made them walk behind her.
The buildings where I lived were all connected, that is, one could walk from one roof to the next. After ten to fifteen buildings, side roads would provide a break in connectivity. My terrace had a low two-foot wall, with a small gap on one side. If the cats went through that gap, they could walk along an overhanging parapet and cross through to the next building, and with a little maneuvering could continue onwards.
When Fluffy called them, the kitties obediently began to follow her as she walked through the gap, onto the parapet. I leaned over the wall to see where they were going. They had crossed about two buildings when little grey kitty looked back and saw me. Turning around, she ran back at top speed to me. I put my hand down to her--did she want me to pick her up? But no--she patted my hand two or three times with her paw, looked intently at me, and then raced back again to join her family. It seemed to me she was saying, Thank you, and also, ‘I’ll see you again.’
For the next two months I did not see any of them. I heard they were living on the roof of a building further on for some time, and then that they had disappeared. Meanwhile Mister continued to visit. Though he never got any friendlier, I felt we shared a bond.
And then, suddenly, the little grey kitty, somewhat bigger now, was back! She was easily identifiable, as her right back leg was brown, something unusual in a grey tabby. At first I thought she was a boy, but after a while realized she was a girl. She was so smart, that I named her Smart Cookie or Cookie for short. Cookie now spent much of her time on my terrace. I fed her everyday, and she and Mister seemed to get on okay. Its not that they sat cuddled together, but he never hissed at her. He began to nap on the terrace at times, while she slept a short distance away.
Cookie was a great hunter. A few days after her return, she proudly showed me a little mouse that she had caught. It is always sad to see a dead creature, but Cookie began to celebrate what was probably her first catch with such exuberant joy, tossing it in the air and catching it again, that I could not help feeling happy for her.

Monday, July 25, 2016

Sweetie's story--1

Sweetie, a beautiful cat, was born on 17 April 2003, and died on 3 March 2016. There are plenty of stories about cats, and Sweetie wasn’t like Bob the Street Cat, or any of those other famous cats. She was a regular, ordinary cat, but extraordinary and special for me.
I’ll begin her story with her grandmother, an orange cat I named Fluffy. Living in Delhi on the second floor, I had a small terrace with some potted plants. Every day I fed any stray cats who came there. The cats in the area soon knew where to come for a safe place to hide, or for something to eat.
Mother cats generally abandon their kittens when they are around three months old. But obviously, they are still concerned about them, because the mothers would bring the kittens to my terrace and tell them they would always get food there, before they left them to their own devices.
Fluffy and Furry were both regular visitors, two look-alike females expecting kittens at the same time. I could distinguish between them as Furry was one shade paler. They had their kittens elsewhere, then returned after a few days, looking thin, and gobbling their food. But just a few days later, Furry stopped coming, and I did not see her again. In fact, in all those years I fed cats, very few came for more than a year. Did they move away somewhere, or did something happen to them? I do not know.
After about six weeks, Fluffy, who had been coming for food every day, brought her kittens too. There were three orange ones like her, and one grey tabby with a brown leg. She left them on the terrace and went away. That was surprising as it wasn’t the right time for her to abandon them. They still needed their mother. For the next four days the kittens did not leave my terrace. Had their mother told them to stay put? I fed them diluted milk, and they leapt and played and had a great time, though they were wrecking my plants.
The first day they were there, I was slightly nervous about Mister, one of the other visiting cats. Mister, a grey boy, was absolutely the largest cat I have ever seen. Tall and well-built, he did not need to be fed, but once he got to know that I was a cat-feeder, he came every day. He wouldn’t leave until he had got his bowl of milk and bread.
Mister wasn’t friendly. If I went anywhere near him, he would hiss ferociously. I had to leave his bowl a couple of feet away from him, and then back away. He would eat and drink, wash his face with his paw, and in his usual stately fashion, would then depart. What would Mister do to these motherless kittens? Well Mister did nothing. They were wary of him and didn’t go anywhere near his food, but once he had eaten, he almost seemed to like them. He stayed longer than usual on the terrace. One of the kittens even had the courage to creep up behind him and flick his tail. Mister, in his dignified way, ignored it, and left after a while.