Pet lover

My first pet was a dog. His name was Raju and he was a local breed.

My dad had got it from someone after they came over to Dombivli in 1976. Ours was a big bungalow and there was no much locality around. This was in the late 70’s when Dombivli was just a remote village. So, for our safety and for the safety of our house, Raju arrived at our house and in our hearts.

No one dared to come near our gate when Raju was policing there. Only a few people had that privilege. The only person he feared was my dad. Raju hated taking bath and just the utterance of my dad's name silenced him and like an obedient child, he let others carry out their duties. He loved eating rusk and milk. There was one Muslim chacha who regularly came to sell biscuits, Khari, toasts, etc. and without fail, Raju got his due share from chacha. Once he grabbed that small piece in his mouth, he used to run to the terrace and eat there in peace with no one around to disturb him.  When I was a baby, barely 2 months old, one lady used to come to give me a bath. Raju made her life miserable by constantly barking at her. Maybe he thought that she would take me away. Only when he was chained, did she step in to bathe me. He was very ferocious when he sensed that his owners are in danger, otherwise he was a very timid and loving fellow.  Dad had trained him well and he carried out all the jobs very diligently.

I do not quite remember him as I was very small at that time, but I have his pics and it makes me wonder at his loyalty. There was no other world for him, but my family. He stayed with us till he was alive and died at my Aaba's (grandfather in Marathi) legs while my aaba was reading some religious book. My dad tells me that some insect bit him very badly and he couldn’t recover from it even after medication. In those days, there were hardly any veterinary doctors to attend to animals. But then I thought we had only those many days with him. Love comes in strange shapes and sizes and Raju proves to be one of such packages who was a great example of loyalty and love towards his mentors and owners.

Next to turn up in our house and family was a cat, who just appeared in our balcony and then in our living room one fine day. Being good at heart, my Aaji (grandmother in Marathi) didn’t shoo her away and regularly fed her milk and chapathi. The cat soon started showing many times in a day and then one day without announcing, she moved in. We made a carton box for her, where she was supposed to sit, but given a cat’s behavior, the cat is generally very hard to train as compared to the dogs. She sat everywhere else but in that carton. We also lost patience to teach her and she triumphed at that. She became a part of the family, where she could walk in at any time and sleep anywhere and do anything she wanted. Oh yes, I would like to mention here that she had good toilet training and never spoiled our house.

Slowly she extended her family and every 4 months, we had a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 kittens. It was a very novel thing, in the beginning, to watch those cotton balls open up their eyes after 7 days, the mother taking them to 7 different locations while they were still small, etc., but then as it happened twice or thrice a year, it became a routine thing for us. I even joked that our house should be renamed a Velankar Maternity Home (for cats). Then there was a series of events that generally followed the birth of kittens. Tomcats were on the prowl, so we had to protect those kittens from them, and then as they grew up, they ate and played with almost all things available at the ground in the house. So that was a task to keep things out of their site, rather keeping them at bay in the balcony itself and not allowing them to enter the house. Then as they grew up, they had to also give them away as it would become impossible to manage 5 human beings and 5-6 cats. So once the house was empty and devoid of kittens again, the mother used to go on a hunger-strike grieving for her kittens, and then that would take 2-3 days for her to normalize and get back to food. 

Morning 9 am and evening at 8 pm were her fixed times for having food. No matter if there was heavy rain, cold, earthquake, she never missed her timings. I felt as if there was some clock stuck in her head which she followed without fail. And yes, what pride she had in eating only on her plate. My Aaji or mom only had to give her food. And my Aaji spoke to her for hours as they were the only ones in the house, once I left for school and my parents for work. People passing by my house wondered if something was wrong with Aaji and why is she talking alone like this. But the cat also closed her eyes and sat in the kitchen as my Aaji finished her chores and gave her a patient ear. The cat never saw any milk, which was kept open, by mistake. Only when the food landed in her plate, she ate to her heart’s content. Sometimes, we offered her rice, chapati, but she never liked it a lot. She loved milk and all milk products. She never stole milk or drank it without our knowledge. I sometimes wondered, what type of cat she is.. she is not true to her basic instincts, but she is true to the people who have raised her. Amazing, isn’t it?

She was afraid of my mom. Sometimes she slept on the couch and we didn’t mind, but my mom hated it. As soon as she heard her footsteps while she returned from office, the cat got down on her own and if she sometimes missed it, hearing my mom utter her name (mani), brought her down immediately. The cat played ping pong ball very beautifully and it is really a treat to watch them play. I loved playing with her and irritating her. She herself played with her tail many times, which amused me a lot. She found something on her own to play with and spend her time. She went out for her routine activities and spent maximum time at home with us. When my aaba died, that morning, the cat was very restless and she was purring in a very strange manner. She did not have food for 2 days and kept visiting the room where he spent his last days. Her eyes were searching for him, but she also knew somewhere that he wouldn’t come back. It is said that animals are able to sense death in advance. I wonder if her strange behavior that morning had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, this association with the cats continued for almost 18 yrs and I have seen 3 generations of cats at my place. The cat who arrived first left after we kept one of her daughters as there can’t be two ruling cats in the small territory and once the second cat’s offspring stayed with us, she left too. This granddaughter was once lost for about 7 days and we searched for her crazily all over the place. She was nowhere to be found. After 7 days, I noticed her in another building with a rope tied around her. It seemed as if she had broken free from somewhere and she was desperately searching for us. As soon as I saw her, I shouted her name (this time it was kabri as she was black and white) and she returned a big mwaaaaao to me and jumped in my arms. We looked like two lost sisters united after many ordeals! My happiness knew no bounds and I walked home merrily with her, proudly looking at the passersby. She also became the mother to many kittens and after a few years, she never returned one evening. We thought she might come back again, but this time she didn’t.  I am still not sure if she went to another house or to another world, itself! 

After that when I moved to Bangalore, one cat appeared and stayed in the passage for about a yr, we raised two kittens of hers and gave them food, etc. But because they littered the place, the landlady drove them away and we never saw them again!

I wanted to have a small aquarium with 2 fishes, I had even named the fishes (Misha and Zoe), but my dear hubby discouraged me from it saying, how would you feel if someone kept you locked in a room of water? I had no answer to this and so I gave up that thought.

I have known people keeping love birds, and parrots which I do not like at all. Caging birds is inhuman and the cage is certainly not their right place.

I have seen the movie “Born Free”, which was based on a true story. A couple got a chance to rear cubs and they grew into wonderful and majestic lions. The male cats moved away, but the female cat stuck to them all the time. They had to go a lot of exercises to finally help her venture into the wild, which was her true habitat. And after the couple met her after a few years with her cubs, she literally leaped on them like a kid would do to his parents. She spent some time with the couple and moved back to the jungle and then they never saw her again! That movie was very touching, you should watch it if you get a chance!

I haven’t got a pet in the real sense in the past few years now but would like to have a German shepherd or a Golden Retriever, sometime in my life. Dogs are most loyal to the masters and their way of showing love and affection just bowls me over. it is also true that only the master can recognize the love and affection in the dog’s eyes!

Pets help us to realize how to love without expecting anything in return. They ask for little time and attention and then they are all yours, ready to do anything for you. You must have seen so many movies that reflect the love between animals and humans. Haathi mere Saathi was a good movie that shown unusual love between an elephant and a human being. Movies of dogs, monkeys, pigeons, and their bonding with the masters touch us all.

I have not known any unusual pet till now, say a crocodile or an insect. Though I love watching the advertisement of HSBC in which a mother while peeling vegetables comes across a green worm and screams, but her son quickly comes from his room and takes it from her and puts it in a glass container and keeps it as his pet. Ach, insects, and pet.. can't imagine.


Those who do not love pets or haven't had them anytime in their loves are altogether a different category of people, but who have some time or the other had a pet would enjoy this post of mine and I would definitely like to know which pet has been your favorite and do you miss him/her? I am specially denoting the animals as he/she cos the cat and dog which I had were really very close and special to me just like any other family member. I hate denoting them as "it".