Skip to main content

Maxima and Minima

Close to my heart


Small things can make me indecently happy or sad. An old friend once compared my mood swings to the maxima-minima graph of a mathematical function. “You are either on the top or at the bottom,” he said like a concerned friend. That was long ago, some time in the 80s. Four decades later, I still remain the same. Painfully aware of the maxima and minima of my mood swings. Helplessly aware. Because they are not under my control. Some things are in your blood. You have to live with them.

A friend of Maggie had arranged the adoption of one of my kittens two days back. Today she told Maggie that the kitten was only crying all the time without eating or drinking anything. That was enough for my mood to hit the bottom. “Tell her to return the kitten immediately,” I told Maggie. “I’ll pick it up from their place.” I couldn’t bear the thought of that little creature wandering around looking for its mother and siblings crying all the while.  Maggie knows when I’m serious. A few phone conversations later, we learnt that the kitten took a day to adapt to its new situation. But after that, it was doing fine. Maggie’s friend was not told about the latter part. Good news doesn’t travel as fast as the bad.

A few weeks back another kitten was being adopted. I was asked to deliver it at a particular place near my school. Having handed it over, Maggie and I sat in our car and watched the person ride her scooter with the kitten. A minute later, the scooter stopped. The kitten managed to escape from its box somehow and it started running on the road. I drove instantly and instinctively to the spot, stopped my car, came out and went after the tiny creature calling it. It stopped running and turned to me. I picked it up and held it close to my heart. It remained there snuggling in my arms. Close to my heart. A day later, I was told that the kitten had become the darling of its entire new family. Close to their heart. My mood wave hit another maximum.

I was never fond of animals until a kitten walked into my life from nowhere. It was an abandoned kitten. People abandoning kittens on roadsides is quite common around here. What moved me was the kitten’s helplessness. Is it pity or love that I feel? I try to rationalise it as pity towards the helplessness of a tiny, innocent creature. But my heart seems to tell me something else. I am yet to comprehend the waywardness of my heart. Maybe, that’s why the graph hits so many maxima and minima.

PS. I must express my infinite gratitude to Maggie's friend who has helped us with the adoption of many of our kittens. Thank you, D. 

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanMay 11, 2022 at 8:42 PM

    Hari OM
    The doctor in my wonders if you have ever been offered assessment; such erratic and defined swings speaks strongly to some bipolar tendency. It is not abnormal to feel compassion for pets - but this sounds extreme... That all said, I am pleased that you are able to find homes for kittens... then the medic in me again wonders at your not having the mother cat/s neutered and thus preventing any further endangerment to your heart?!! (Forgive this pragmatist...) YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 11, 2022 at 9:06 PM

      There is borderline bipolar disorder, I know. Since it's not hazardous to anyone, i let it be with occasional medication...

      There is no neutering of cats here, as far as I know. I had enquired.

      Delete
  2. Sandhya BhattaramMay 12, 2022 at 2:58 PM

    A heart-warming experience and adorable kittens! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Abhisek NayakMay 14, 2022 at 1:48 PM

    Loved reading it sir. Wish you, mam and your kittens great health.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Pradeep NairMay 15, 2022 at 11:08 PM

    We get attached to pets and it's quite natural that our moods are influenced by them.
    Nice of you to have arranged for the adoption of the kittens.
    Online games and the idea of beauty

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2022 at 6:31 AM

      I had little choice but get people to adopt them because at a time there were 8 of them at home excluding adult cats. I'm grateful to so many people who gladly took the kittens.

      Delete
  5. Sujatha SathyaJune 13, 2022 at 10:08 AM

    so sweet! nice read.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Being Christian in BJP’s India

A moment of triumph for India’s women’s cricket team turned unexpectedly into a controversy about religious faith and expression, thanks to some right-wing footsloggers. After her stellar performance in the semi-final of the Wormen’s World Cup (2025), Jemimah Rodrigues thanked Jesus for her achievement. “Jesus fought for me,” she said quoting the Bible: “Stand still and God will fight for you” [1 Samuel 12:16]. Some BJP leaders and their mindless followers took strong exception to that and roiled the religious fervour of the bourgeoning right wing with acerbic remarks. If Ms Rodrigues were a Hindu, she would have thanked her deity: Ram or Hanuman or whoever. Since she is a Christian, she thanked Jesus. What’s wrong in that? If she was a nonbeliever like me, God wouldn’t have topped the list of her benefactors. Religion is a talisman for a lot of people. There’s nothing wrong in imagining that some god sitting in some heaven is taking care of you. In fact, it gives a lot of psychologic...
26 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

The wisdom of the Mahabharata

Illustration by Gemini AI “Krishna touches my hand. If you can call it a hand, these pinpricks of light that are newly coalescing into the shape of fingers and palm. At his touch something breaks, a chain that was tied to the woman-shape crumpled on the snow below. I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable – but I always was so, only I never knew it! I am beyond the name and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego. And yet, for the first time, I’m truly Panchali. I reach with my other hand for Karna – how surprisingly solid his clasp! Above us our palace waits, the only one I’ve ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming and dissolving again like fireflies in a summer evening.” What is quoted above is the final paragraph of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Palace of Illusions which I reread in the last few days merely because I had time on my hands and this book hap...
12 comments
Read more

Hollow Leaders

A century ago, T S Eliot wrote about the hollowness of his countrymen in a poem titled The Hollow Men . The World War I had led to a lot of disillusionment with the collapse of powerful empires and the savagery of the war itself which unleashed barbaric slaughter. The generation that survived was known as the “Lost Generation.” Before the war, Western civilisation was sustained by certain values and principles given by religion, the Enlightenment, and Victorian morality. The war showed that science and technology, which could improve life, had actually produced machine guns, gas warfare, and mass death. Religion became hollow. People became hollow. “We are the hollow men,” Eliot’s poem began. The civilisation looked sophisticated from outside, but it was empty inside. There is a lot of religion today in the world. My country has allegedly become so religious that it decides what you will eat, wear, which god you will pray to, and even the language for communication. The ultimat...
16 comments
Read more