Ignoble Nim"

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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