It's not always a happy ending

A month ago, Mia ( The cat which roams around the neighbourhood) strayed into our house with her two kittens. The empathic twinkle in their eyes melted our hearts and we decided to give them a home. After settling her two kittens comfortably at our place, Mia went out foraging. She returned soon with another kitten. The family was united and thus began their journey...

            The little threesome passed their time playing with Mia's tail and running confusedly through our long corridor. They would escape into some invisible space, once their mother was out of the house. It was interesting to watch them slowly get used to the surroundings of their new home. The bamboo furniture became their favourite athletic tool. They loved attempting long jumps through the rectangular bamboo stretchers, though they never succeeded in the sport. It was incredibly funny to see them topple over each other and enjoy their time!
           Then came the BIG fight! The big kitten fight! It made me go nuts seeing the tiny cotton balls swell up in anger, with their fur all puffed up, making it look twice as big its original size and hissing and spitting at each other. I  (twenty times bigger than them) myself got scared seeing their deadly appearance! It reminded me of the poisonous-venom-spitting dinosaur  from Jurassic park. On googling on the symptoms of 'puffed up fur' , I realised that it's an instinctual mechanism that operates when a cat senses threat. Placing the newly acquired knowledge in the context of the Big kitten fight episode, I understood that the little dinosaurs were threatened  seeing each other's macabre selves.
          Coming to food, the kittens were not so eager about it as our Strauss is. Strauss gulps down whatever he finds on his plate in a matter of seconds and then begs for food as if he was on a hunger strike for decades. These kittens, after having their meagre share parted ways, leaving behind the feeding bowl with its unfinished gooey contents.
           Afternoon times were the best. We could find Mia stretched out on the floor, feeding her three babies, who appeared lost in some happy dream with their closed eyes.

       

  During the night, one kitten would crawl up through the vacuum cleaner, rested on the corner of Irene's study room, and find their way inside the jute bag, hung from the wall hook. Another would climb up the cardboard carton piled up with trash and settles in for sleep on Strauss's old pillow case kept on top of the pile. And the third would find itself a place on the lower rack of the book shelf, placed next to the cardboard carton.

I couldn't see enough of their adventures and fights.I had to leave home soon. One week before my departure, two kittens had already gone missing. We searched  all over the place, but couldn't find them. Many days later, Irene found one of them- the smartest of the three, beside the well. Our neighbour buried it.

Last day, while I was complaining about the horrible summers of Haryana, I could hear meow meowing through the phone. Amma said it was Mia and Kalki ( the only kitten left. It had a black, smooth coat, hence the name!) I felt it was halloooing to me from kilometers away.


Today when Amma called me, she said that she accidentally ran the car over Kalki the previous day. Kalki was stuck somewhere underneath the car. Some invisible space that it was always good escaping into. As the car gathered pace, Kalki might have lost its balance and fell on to the ground. She was buried next to her sibling.

I have seen death closely. I have seen how the last spirit of life departs one's warm body. I have seen the last struggle of the body fighting for that breath- something which we take for granted every other day. Death reminds me that life is precarious, how much ever we plan and prepare for it. Sometimes, death comes in like an unexpected guest who arrives on a busy Monday morning when the house is turned upside down with kids running after their lost sock or the shoe polish.

At the end, it's a phase that you have to endure all by yourself. Here I'm talking about Mr. Death in his most unexpected and cruel guise.Comforting words and the warm hugs and kisses would offer a slight relief to a being ripped between life and death. But no one really accompanies you through the exit door. It's a prohibited area for others. It would be just you and the really really heavy luggage you  have to drag through to get across life.
The thought of death making its presence in different  shapes frightens me. So I don't wish to fantasize on my last day and lose my sleep. I'll bury the death thought for now.

When we find ourselves young and healthy, we have an option to make our lives as useful as we can and forget the great philosophies of life.
It is priceless to dole out little acts of kindness to helpless creatures.

This blog is dedicated to :
our dearest Snowy, Genie and Kalki... whose visit to our lives was too brief.