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My Home My Kingdom

Bobby, one of my 3 cats, while I was writing this post.
For some time he was on my lap and then found a better place on my printer.


The white paint on the walls just below the windowsills are stained with the pawprints of my cats. When someone asked me why I let my cats stain my otherwise clean white walls, my answer was simple: “It’s my house, they’re my cats.” My cats have the freedom to enter through any open window of my house. I clean the stains left by them once a week or so which means the stains remain there most of the days. The last time I got my house painted I asked the painter to help me with this problem. “Why not apply a washable paint just below the windows?” I asked. “That won’t look good,” he said. “We’ll use a wall paint which can be cleaned with a wet piece of cloth,” he continued when I looked unhappy with what he said. The wet cloth doesn’t really remove all the pawmarks . It doesn’t matter. Because my cats are more important to me than the chastity of the whiteness of the walls of my house.

I live in a state whose people build ostentatious houses by spending almost all their savings and also huge loans taken from banks. When I came to Kerala from Delhi seven years ago, I went around looking for a house to buy. My agent showed me quite many houses all of which were beyond my budget. I learnt that they were all built by people who wanted to show off more than they could afford to. I didn’t want to show off anything. Finally I constructed a house of my own. No ostentation at all. A simple house. Good enough for two of us and the cats that joined us eventually from nowhere.

There’s space for some guests too though I hardly have them. I was supposed to be an antisocial creature in the folklores of my Shillong years (my youth). Then I became asocial in my Delhi years (middle age). Now I have withdrawn myself from the society so much that I don’t know what they think of me and it doesn’t bother me at all. My cats are better company and the stains they leave on my walls aren’t as bad as the blood stains carried by news reports day after day. 

When I took a break

PS. Triggered by Indispire Edition 426: should your home reflect how you live or how you want to portray home to others? #myhome

 

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanOctober 30, 2022 at 4:30 PM

    Hari OM
    Quite right! I might be inclined to use a transparent sticky plastic (like for covering books) alone beneath the sills... just for ease of clean and all that. But yeah, what's a pawmark or several over the joy of the cats' company?! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2022 at 7:07 AM

      That's a wonderful suggestion, Yamini. Thank you. I take it. 👍

      Delete
  2. Sonia dograOctober 31, 2022 at 6:25 AM

    This could be a poem

    ReplyDelete
  3. YogithaOctober 31, 2022 at 6:32 AM

    Sometimes we can trust animals more than humans(the most dangerous crooked creature in the whole world ) . Moreover those who knows you in personal will continue to accept u in the way you are . All the students who had got a chance to be in your class are blessed just like me 🙂

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 31, 2022 at 7:09 AM

      Delighted to hear this. My students are the only society I now have. That's why I continue in the profession.

      Delete
  4. magiceyeOctober 31, 2022 at 6:45 PM

    Way to be!

    ReplyDelete
  5. dee NambiarNovember 2, 2022 at 1:44 AM

    That's a sweet post.
    I send well wishes to you and your feline friends. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Rajeev MoothedathNovember 4, 2022 at 11:59 AM

    Nice...

    ReplyDelete

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