Cat Story

(I am very much embarrassed to write on such an insignificant topic. But as of now, I have no other topics currently running in my mind)

Let me start with those usual lamentations about my nearly forgotten days from the past. But hopefully, nowadays I think I don’t need to invoke the attention of muses of my olden days to get written a chapter of my life. Unlike my old day posts, majority of which dealt with memories of past years, my recent posts have started brimming with exciting and remarkable memories of my present day life. 

For instance, today what I have in mind to offer you is some memorable moments that I spent with a cat, and the story does not end there simply, but it gets built up only when you come to know that those moments are the ones neatly stolen from my office time. Office and cat? Doesn’t sound like a nice combination, does it? But, I had already told you about a detective story in which a mouse played the role of the main protagonist. That too happened at my office. So, a story in which cat plays the bigger part can also be considered for the plot of another story, especially since cats are the favorite pets of humans.

When my colleague informed us about a cat that was caught trapped alone on a parapet of the second story of our four storied office building, we first mocked her by citing the well known saying about cats. As per the proverb in Malayalam, a cat would always land on its four legs, irrespective of the way it falls. Cat’s this innate ability to orient itself while falling is known among the zoologists by the term Cat Righting Reflex. But the next day also when she reported the pathetic plight of the cat with no one to rescue, we felt also sympathy. Science and Proverbs could make mistakes at times, we thought.

“I put some biscuits on the parapet to feed it. Or the poor thing will starve to death. No idea about how it got trapped on there!”, she said.

We decided to have a look at it. “If I can stand on my feet on the parapet, I will make a try to rescue it,” Saying so I headed to the balcony of the second floor to have a peep. We saw the cat on the parapet eating the biscuits. There was a small room close to balcony. I entered into the room and there was a window through which one could have climbed down to land safely on the parapet.

I thought about my childhood days. My elder sister used to criticize me for behaving cruelly to our domestic cat. Though I don’t remember exactly those incidents, as she had tried to recollect me, I used to throw our cat whenever I felt angry at her, because it was she who brought the cat from our ancestral home. 

Seeing the trapped cat on the parapet, I thought about rescuing it, if it could give me salvation from the sins that I might have committed to our pet cat. With the support of my colleagues I climbed down through the window and finally landed on the parapet safely. 

Terrified by seeing me, the cat tried to move away. There were two condensers on the corner of the parapet. The cat tried to hide itself behind those condensers. But when I tried to catch it, it tried to jump from there. I planned to play nice to the cat. Picking up two biscuits from the ground, and sitting down, I tried to attract the attention of the cat imitating the sound of the common house hold lizard by twisting my tongue and letting air pass out through mouth.

When I patted on its head, it tried to attack me by raising its hind leg. My colleagues and some more people who followed them were watching the entire activity by standing on the balcony. They tried to prevent me from getting cat scratches. So, I stopped my attempt to rescue it and climbed up back through the window. We also reported about the trapped cat to the supervisor and hoped that he would do something for the rescue of the cat.

After lunch, the supervisor came to our section and told us that the cat was not trapped there. It had given birth to some kitten and was living with them peacefully under the condenser till they find a better place to stay.