Nostalgia 4 - Pets

20 October 2006 Friday around 2 p.m.

Location: Joel's house

We (Myself, Deepak, Joel and Vishnu) were sitting on a sofa which was the only furniture without any damage in his room. Each of us had a plate in our hands and within those plates were Joel's failed attempt of a Sharkara Payasam (a fluid sweet made of jaggery). The payasam had gradually turned out to be Kapalandi mittai (chikki in Hindi). Whatever the result, Joel had tried his best. So, as a vote of thanks, we decided to help him finish the dish, thus avoiding him the trouble of eating it alone. We were talking about cricket as we ate. Soon the topic changed to our pet cat whom we lost last week.

I went into a flashback - We (Deepak and me) had found the cat abandoned near Durga Mata Mandir. We brought it to the terrace of our building first as these animals were denied entry into our homes by our parents. It was dusk and soon it would be dark.

Deepak : We have to find a safe home for her.

Me : Can't leave her on the terrace. How about our buildings compound?

Deepak : We haven't yet tried that place with a cat but sounds good.

Me : Lets give it a try atleast for tonight. If it doesn't work we will find a new place tommorow.

Deepak : We don't have other options. Lets go there.

So, we built a small home with some bricks and cloth for the cat. It was a place where no one other than we few friends visited. Moreover, the cat seemed to be very happy there catching the small rats in there, who am sure might have cursed us for bringing this Dracula into their heaven. We left it there with a plate of milk and returned to our respective homes. Next day, early morning, before going to school, both of us peeped into the compound. To our shock, the cat was missing. We were getting late for school and hence couldn't search for her properly. The first thing we did after returning from school was to look for her. We searched the compound completely but in vain. We then proceeded to the neighbouring dumping ground. We searched there for a while and atlast found her. However, it was not in a condition we would have wished. She was dead. She may have ventured out of her home in the night and may have been attacked by some animal.

The sound of one of my friends' teeth crushing onto the food brought me back from the flashback.

Joel : A friend of mine has got a cat and he is ready to give it. But....

Vishnu : But what?

Joel : He will take some money in return.

Deepak : How much?

Joel : Don't know. Maybe we should meet him.

Me : But even if we buy the cat where will we hide her. Our parents won't allow her into our homes.

Deepak : That won't be a problem. We have Joel's house. His parents won't be returning from Saudi Arabia for the next few months right, Joel?

Joel : Yes but are you sure it won't cause any damage to my house.

Vishnu : What damage can a small cat cause to your house?

Me (looking at the broken glasses of the showcase, broken table, damaged piano, etc.) : Atleast not as much as you yourself are doing.

Joel : Let's see the cat first.

Deepak : Lets see. Can we go there now?

Joel : Ofcourse.

So, the four of us set out for something which could give us a new pet. On the way, I was thinking about all our previous pets whom we lost within a short period.

First, a few stray dogs in our neighbouring areas who went missing after some days.

Then a puppy we found on 29th February 2004. How I remember the date? Well, it was my father's birthday and some of his friends had come home with gifts. I received three dairy milk chocolate bars from them. I took one of them, gave one to Deepak and the last one to the puppy who fed on it greedily swallowing probably the golden paper covering as well. It was enough for him to be friendly to us. This puppy was like the cat kept in the compound of our building. Unfortunately, it went missing the next day.

Then a very small sparrow Deepak brought one day from his school. It died at my home the next day.

Then 3 new born puppies in our neighbouring chawl. The owner of the chawl was a brute who used to harm these poor creatures sometimes. So, we rescued them and kept them in our compound where they lived for a few days with their mother. However, the woman of that chawl found them and to our astonishment climbed into our compound and took them away. After that we didn't dare to bring them back. Those dogs, gradually succumbed to some disease.

Then a small pigeon offered by Deepak's tuition teacher. Strangely, we had received the bird on 23rd January (Subhash Chandra Bose's birthday) and it flew away on 26th January (Republic Day).

Then a small bat, we found in the letter box of our building. We built a small house like structure for him with the cardboard box of the new shoes I had just purchased. There were some pedhas (sweets) at my home during that time. We fed him those pedhas and he seemed to enjoying it. He too flew away one day.

I was thinking about some more when we reached our destination - Joel's friend's house. Joel went in and called him while we waited outside. His friend came out and engaged in some conversation with him most probably about his cat. His friend then went in and returned with a cat in his hands. Joel called us and we went near. We saw it was white and healthy one with a long tail. But wait! Whats wrong with her eyes. We saw that she had only one eye. It looked really horrible. Usually, we have a smile on our face when we see a cat but today it was something else. We looked at eachother with a 'do we need this' look on our face. Joel told his friend that we will come again later as we hadn't brought any money with us. His friend agreed gladly. We returned home never to go there again leave alone buying the cat.

There is something to think about here - A missing organ made an otherwise cute face look horrible.

Thus, for the first time we rejected a pet.