The Cat

French writer Anatole France was of the opinion that until we have loved an animal a part of our soul remains unawakened. Among the many parts of my soul that remained unawakened was love for animals. I would admire them from a distance and quite a lot of them are far more admirable than many human beings. The ‘fearful symmetry’ of Blake’s Tiger and the ‘shining tail’ of Lewis Carroll’s Crocodile move me to wonder but I wouldn’t get too close to them anyway. Why, for that matter, I wouldn’t get too close to the loyallest of dogs or the cutest of cats just because I couldn’t tolerate some of their habits like the dogs leaving their signature piss all over the place or the cats licking their paws narcissistically.

   A cat walked into my soul a few weeks back, however. Someone was tired of the cat’s intemperate love and hence abandoned it in the farm behind my house. Maybe, he was abandoned on the roadside in the night and he just strolled into my farm. I saw it roaming round in the morning and ignored it. In the evening, back from my regular job, I went to the farm to fill a few grow-bags for the spinach saplings that were getting too big for the seed pot.

   The cat watched me gingerly from a distance before inching closer and closer, encouraged probably by my cool indifference.  He sat down a couple of metres away from where I was digging and continued to watch. When I was about to move with the filled grow-bag, I said to the cat, “Come.” He followed me with an obedience that warmed the cockles of my cold heart.

   Maggie gave him some food which he ate ravenously. He has continued to share our meals ever since and has gone on to become a mild dictator. If he is not given his share before we sit down at the dining table, he will walk in through the window and circle the dining table furiously with loud protests.

   I have a habit of drinking a couple of glasses of plain water as soon as I wake up in the morning. The moment the cat hears the sound in the kitchen he will start meowing relentlessly at the door. I pick up a couple of biscuits, wet them under the tap and place them in his plate. The purring sound that accompanies the process has become my morning bhajan.

   In case I am late one morning he is sure to sneak in through the window and march majestically into my bedroom with a demurring miaow. When I am in the garden in the evening plucking out weeds, he is there watching me jealously before making an occasional leap at my hand that’s plucking the weeds. He is jealous of the weeds that get more attention, I think. When I take my usual walk outside home after dinner, he joins me trying to rub himself against my leg.

  The other day, when I didn’t hear his demand for his morning biscuits, my heart skipped a beat. I opened the door and he was not there. I called him by the name I have given him. No response. I went out and walked to the front of the house. And there he was gleefully catching and eating the hoard of alates that were flying around the bulb outside. He didn’t bother even to look at me. “Have your feast, gentleman,” I said as I walked away to my morning’s chores.

   The cat has indeed awakened a part of my soul, I realised.