Brownie and I - a love affair

The last snap I took of Brownie

That Brownie went away without giving me a hint is what makes her absence so painful. It’s nearly a month and I know now for certain that she won’t return. Worse, I know that she didn’t want to leave me. She couldn’t have.

Brownie is the only creature who could make me do what she wanted. She had the liberty to walk into my bedroom at any time of the night and wake me up for a bite of her favourite food. She would sit below the bed and meow. If I didn’t get up and follow her, she would climb on the bed and meow to my face. She knew I would get up and follow her to the cupboard where bags of cat food were stored. 

My Mistress in my study

Brownie was not my only cat; there were three others. But none of the other three ever made the kind of demands that Brownie made. If any of them came to eat the food I served Brownie at odd hours of the night, Brownie would flatly refuse to eat with them in spite of the fact that it was she who had brought me out of my bedroom. She would give the other cats a contemptuous look and sit far away. She knew I would serve her separately.

Maggie teased me many a time that Brownie was the only creature on earth that could make me toe the line so easily.

The truth is I enjoyed catering to Brownie’s ego. I wasn’t making her feel special, I felt, she was making me feel special. She wouldn’t ever do with anyone else the sort of things she did with me. She made me feel like I was her god though she behaved like a goddess herself. Brownie and I were peers in a realm that stood far beyond human gradations. 

I remember Brownie’s first delivery. She made a lot of fuss when the pains started. I caressed her forehead which she loved. I fondled her belly. I had arranged a spacious carton which I lined with newspapers and soft cloth for her delivery. She couldn’t quite endure all that pain. Or she was puzzled. I don’t know. I left her to herself in the carton and went to bed. Just as I glided into deep slumber, I was woken up by a strange sound. Brownie was there by my side on the bed with a newborn kitten between her teeth. Her sacred gift to me. Then I realised that Brownie was all baffled. She was still to make sense of what was happening, I think.

I took her and her newborn kitten to the place I had prepared for her kittening. It was all a mess. I changed the lining with new papers and cloth and told Brownie that the pain was normal and she had to accept it. She seemed to have understood. She didn’t make an offering of her next two kittens to me on my bed.

Pregnancy was never easy for Brownie. She demanded a lot of attention in the days prior to her subsequent deliveries. She would stand right in front of me with a bowed forehead for days before each delivery. If I didn’t caress her forehead, she would start rubbing it against my body until I became her masseur.

Her last two deliveries altered her character. The kittens were all dead within hours of the delivery in both cases. I don’t know what went wrong. I think Brownie had no milk at all for her newborns. Whatever the cause, Brownie became more aloof from the other cats. She began to hate them. She started spending more time with me. Whenever I was in my study, she would come there and make herself cosy either in my lap or on my table somewhere. 

Superiority Complex

Brownie extracted a lot of my attention and patience. But I was never annoyed. On the contrary, I felt rather proud that an animal, which usually doesn’t care much for humans, entrusted itself to my care. Not many creatures in my acquaintance had ever found me lovable. Brownie deserved an award, I thought. And my unswerving pampering was my award for her.

When she failed to appear in my study as usual one day last month, I went calling her name all over the place. I could sense a horrifying weight descending into my chest.

Many days after her disappearance, someone told Maggie that the dead body of a calico cat was found on the roadside by someone. Nothing was certain. Nobody seemed to know where the body was seen. It must have been a vehicle run-over, that’s all what everyone said. Maggie and I walked on the road for a while. But I knew I had lost Brownie for ever.

The lesson that Brownie taught me is eternal. What you do for someone you love is never a pain or sacrifice. Love is a pleasure, a divine delight. 

Three pics from Brownie's early days