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But keeping such a large number of pets has its downside as
well. Not all are fond of cats.
Especially, if they would go sneaking into the neighbours’ on the opposite
side, from time to time.” Look at the shit over there in the corner! Must be
the gift left by that detestable
Kitu!” Am Kunzang, the wife of Ap Kezang,
was heard shouting one morning with a particular emphasis on the second last
word. “Now who’s gonna clean this poop? Wai, charo, can you ask that maid, what’s
her name…… Ritu, yes, Ritu to come over and do the cleaning up job?”
She was of course talking about Agay Nim Tshering’s maid who
stayed with him and was treated like one of the family. She came after sometime
and swept the stuff off with a hard broom.
One day Am Kunzang came to the kitchen to find his kada overturned with a few pieces of the
tuna
fish scattered on the floor.” Wai Lama!” she screamed out knowing full
well who the culprits were. “Can no one do nothing about those horrid cats? I
wouldn’t mind paying the cleaner ngultrum 50 for catching the cold-blooded
thieves and dispensing them to a god-forsaken place!”
That’s how agay lost his cat with the tiger skin and
delectable whiskers! He was so upset that he skipped his dinner and spent the whole
day praying!
Even Ap Kezang, who was the more tolerant of the two, was
overheard one day speaking to Ritu: “You know, Ritu, that no other animal is as
ungrateful as the cat. You know what happened to our Pema some years back?
While she’s coming back from school one day, she found. a cat in a tight
corner, at the mercy of two ferocious
dogs. Being compassionate by nature, our daughter tried to help it out. As the
dogs ran away, the cat was still whining and purring. Pema tried to pick it up to
comfort it and was scratched and bitten black and blue in the bargain! She
survived due to the timely shot rendered at the hospital. There are no limits
to these cats and their ungratefulness...”
Ritu looked sympathetically to ap Kezang and remarked: “I’m
just a paid maid, Ap Kezang, and do what I’m asked to do...”
In October, while climbing down the stairs, agay Nim slipped
and had a slight bruise in his right leg. The wound soon led to a swollen foot.
Things came to such a head that he had to spend one whole week in the hospital
for the first time in his life. The docs told him that he had a fungus
infection, most probably due to being in
close proximity with some domestic animals.
“These darned quarks!! They think they are the most educated
ones in Gods universe! They have all the answers from the causes of ailments to
the medicine at their fingertips!”
A few days later ap Kezang visited him to enquire about his
progress. The moment he entered agays room, an indescribable stench sickened
him to his stomach. The 70-year-old was lying in bed with his bandaged leg
peeping out of the quilt. The man looked at peace though with half a dozen cats
all around him. One sniffing, one mother cat keeping her kittens busy with her
bushy tail and the ugliest one sound asleep on agay’s belly!
One of the cats died on the same day. That night, while
serving her husband dinner at the table, am Kunzang said: “Before it is too
late, someone must get rid of the cursed cats! The death of a cat is always a
bad omen. It presages, so my granny said, the death of a human... “
But nothing could change agay Nim or his love for cats. He
couldn't get out of bed any more, but most of his awaking time he spent
nestling and nurturing the cats.
On that wintry morning, as Ritu came up with his bed tea,
agay was found stone dead with a serene look on his face and one hand stretched
over his favourite, Kitu. The thing that surprised Ritu the most was to find
all his cats there surrounding him at that time! All thirty one of them! It was
as if they were paying their last respects to this noble soul, for the last
time, collectively!
By: R.N.Bhattacharjee
