The Begining

Dedication: This post is dedicate to the tiny baby lizard who died today … when I accidently stepped on him.

 

This will trace the origins of my facination with cats and it probally should have come right at the begining of my blog. But then if movie makers have the artistic right to break out of form, as a student of Media and Communication, that also gives me the license to go about in random disorder with a utter disregard for chronology. So rewind back to the 90s, please.

Late 90s: I was thirteen and was having a good year with my guinea-pigs. The preceeding winter had been easy on us, and the guineas were all fat and cuddly. Spring was in the air and love was among my guineas and soon with the advent of Summer, we were ready to welcome six new additions to our Tribe. Baby guineas and all, that summer there were thirteen of us. Well actually fourteen, if you are ready to count me in as one large special guinea.

That Summer, I was self appointed as the Shepherdess of the Tribe. Every afternoon, during grazing time when all the guineas spilled out onto my mother – The Royal Evilness’s – marvelous lawn, my responcibility was to sit upright in the middle of the lawn and keep all crows, cats and mongooses away from the guineas. Tinker, the ancient wise one in the Tribe, was in charge of looking after the six babies and kept the frisky ones under her tight control. Meanwhile, the rest of the Tribes, including the two tired mothers would run about pell mell and graze to their hearts content, keeping the entire lawn meticulously trimmed.

Everything was fine, and between Tinker and me, we kept order among the Tribe. Until that day.

That particular day the Tribe was noticed by one slinky hungry thin white cat. It somehow managed to sneakily creep up from behind me,  suddenly materialize on our turf and before I knew anything the entire Tribe was under silent attack from it and in grave danger. I whistled and the experienced ones immediately dived for cover under the thick protection of The Royal Evilness’s rows of Cosmos flowers. Tinker promptly gathered and pushed the young ones under another row – but she herself stood exposed and frozen in her tracks.

The cat looked at her. But Tinker was frozen and staring way beyond me and suddenly cat and I, we both heard it. A tiny scared baby squeak. And then another - a weak trembling call for help. Way behind me.

The baby guinea who had strayed out was at the far end of the lawn. Alone and exposed. Tinker was at the other end of the lawn – frozen and exposed as well. I was standing in the middle with the cat right out of my reach and facing me. And then that bastard cat actually smiled at me.

He knew very well I had limited options. And that mangy stray smiled because he knew I had to choose.

I was human. In that split second I chose Tinker because I couldn’t leave her - I ran left while the cat ran right. I snatched Tinker up and pressed me close to me so that she couldn’t see what happened behind us and then turned back just in time to see that lowlife of a cat snatch that baby up and sink its teeth into its throat…

…

I’ll skip all the details of my mourning. But this incident made me team up with my friend BBC (whose rabbit was also killed by a cat) and initiate the “Cat Murderification Campaign”. Our goal was simple. Hunt down one cat and kill it. A life for a life. His planned to set fire to the cat. I planned to boil my victim. Yes –  we were both pretty disturbed kids.

And that is how I met Zombie. He wasn’t thin and mangy. He was quite well built and broad – the alfa male. But he was white and that similarity was enough. I spent days following him around the compound, offering him chicken wings stolen from The Royal Evilness’s fridge and trying to win over enough trust, to get close enough to snatch him up and pop him into a pot of boiling water.

Zombie tolerated me attentions and condescended to eat whatever I offered him. He was indifferent to my long hard stares and solemnly obliged by staring back at me. He allowed me to tag along with him when he went about digging up and pooping around The Royal Evilness’s kitchen garden and even brought along and introduced Brownie when they first started going out.

He wasn’t cute. He wasn’t adorable. But he had character and as I got to know more about his life, I appreciated the grace with which he took every fall, his solemn pride and his fierce independence. He symbolized a part of my life that as a Bangladeshi girl I will never have a chance to live out.

During the winter of 1999, on November 3rd Tinker died. She was old. Almost seven years. With her gone, the Tribe changed and I couldn’t go on alone. The Tribe disbanded and I distributed the surviving members among friends and family, who wanted to start up guinea-pig families of their own.

And with the guineas gone, in an ironic twist of fate, I found my own Tribe of cats and ended up – no not boiling them – but growing up with them and eventually falling in love with them.