“If u love cats then this story is for you. If u hate cats then this story is also for you.
-By a former cat hater”

Warning: Photos taken were real and a cat harmed itself.

EPILOGUE

10.45 AM:

My apartment is usually surrounded by a wall. The top of the wall is moulded with jagged pieces of glasses, sharp enough to make the robbers squeal aloud like babies and be confined to their lockup cradles. As the sun rose in the morning, there stood one creature on the top of the wall, basking in the sunlight and it was sitting on the jagged glasses, (no, it ain’t an Indian fakir!) but a cat.

The cat began walking gracefully and light as ballet dancer through and around the jagged pieces of glass, well, that’s normal but a plastic bag that contained something like leftovers was hanging from its mouth, it seemed to be carrying it, when it put its paw to take other step, it got entangled in the cover’s loose garments, and it dint let go of the bag in its mouth and the cover was tying up its front right paw up, making it stumble often.

With the bag in its mouth, it was sort of unable to see where it was going and painfully trotted on the transparent thorns and struggled for… what seemed minutes to find a gap between them, to put its paws for standing support on the wall and a crow seemed to be interested in the food cover, stooped in and over the cat a couple of times even touching it, but cat didn’t seem to give up, the crow flew off finally after some minutes.

The cat looked around panting and saw a surprised face watching it from the first floor on a balcony, that face was me!!!

The Daily Onus

15 minutes earlier
10.30 AM:

“Cats are Feline mammals usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar.”

Though I am an animal lover, with immense fascination for the life evolution and metabolism, actually I don’t like cats so much myself because of their pride and attitude (Tail straight up in the Air!), no offense, but I am fond of Garfield.

Then one boring day after the New Year day, I saw a sight that convinced me to like cats after all!

It all happened when I was holed up in my Chennai flat alone, with my family in Kerala for a marriage (I couldn’t go as school is bound to start the next day).

I woke up in the morning and went and sat at my Table and began my daily life cycle (holiday cycle) of checking SMS, Orkut, Mailbox, New movies, unfinished games.

The result was a fact that today has to be a Boring Day!!

In my brain, the emergency’s first instruction said “Switch on the TV!”

OK, now back to the real story!

I learned cooking from my mom for my survival being alone, I surprising found it to be a really cool stress buster, I used to whip up bread n eggs in no time and dosa, rice and noodles (all the common bachelor’s homemade food!) then eat them with the alternative curries which was canned up in the refrigerator by Good ol’momma!!

The Boring View from my house

It was that time, with the TV on, singing and imaging some song of a deep cleft chin hero running around trees after his giggling lover.

I decided to whip up bread n eggs, in the kitchen there stood a terrace with a boring view of the apartment compound, if I looked straight on, I could see a fat dude semi-naked in next apartment window occasionally.

It was out of the habit of waiting for the eggs to fry up on the pan, I walked over to the balcony and leaned on the railing and shot a bored glance at the main gate, (our flat was just one floor above the ground) then looked down, Hoping to see something interesting like pretty gals which are quite rare to see in this place, but there instead I saw a shiny bald head of a middle aged man *sigh*, “I knew he was living in ground floor and daily came out to put the rubbish, the rubbish barrels was over the corner, which was plainly the eatery for cats and rats, I don’t know why cats dint catch rats maybe because the rats was so fat and huge!”

The Catty Couple

There was a ginger cat and a big tabby grey cat with stripes who always hanged around that place, so I was sure they were husband and wife but no vows yet, their house (some wooden box) was in the next apartment over the wall, daily they could come over the wall and walk gracefully through the jagged glasses, and have their edible share in the rubbish barrels and then depart back (As if at a restaurant outing).

The Incident there and back again

As I watched the boring baldy toss the rubbish bag into the barrel and my sight fell on the ginger cat which came out of a barrel, carrying a half filled black plastic cover in its mouth, and it looked weird to see a cat carrying the bag like a dog, I watched on as it climbed on the wall and got messed up.

(See EPILOGUE)

I was surprised why in the hell, it was not leaving the forsaken bag which was causing it so much trouble, I could see a couple of bloody gashes on the cat’s paws and there were some blood stains on glass.

It was struggling to move and jump off to other side. I could see one paw pressed on a sharp glass piece, in all my life, I thought those creatures was graceful, but this one was probably crazy.

The Underestimation

My mind was racing whether to help it or watch like a lazy ruler does to the gladiator pits, I was about to respond, then suddenly it FINALLY jumped and fell over other side of wall, and landed awkwardly on its hind paws, as the front paw was entangled in the bag covers, and slowly it got up, stretched and limped over to a spot near an old car which was always parked there, and finally to my relief it dropped the cover from its mouth and managed to get its paw free from the bag cover.

To my surprise it left the bag untouched and darted under the car and disappeared for like minutes, I was irritated that the cat who has went through lot of trouble has left the bag finally without touching it ( what a pea sized brained creature! I felt pity for it.)

I had confirmed this was sort of a sight which was somewhat satisfactory with a temporary place in my memory and I was about to leave the balcony, then I glanced over once more to the place where the bag was, suddenly about three small cute ginger kittens darted from under the car and began rummaging hungrily around and inside the cover quickly and the cat which I came to know was the mother, came out and laid down next to them watching them gobbling up the leftovers and started licking its feet nursing its wounds, Then all this incident struck me, I was moved by what I saw, I know I haven’t explained quite well in detail but it was amazing and moving that a mother cat overcame the adversity for its hungry children, it bought a really large quantity! I was left amazed there watching the scene of the kittens eating away into the bag, which the mother cat watching away and she looked over me up in my balcony with a lazy glance through her yellow slits with a lopsided mouth.

(probably thinking what the hell is this surprised bloke looking at?? it is just all in a day’s work.. Meeooww!!)

Then I remembered that the quote “Never Underestimate Others.” meant something.

After that I decided to name her cat woman! ☺