How Nature Speaks to Us: A Little Kitten's Encounters With Life and Death

THEY SAY cats have nine lives. Maybe. The other day, as I watched a little kitten’s encounters with life and death, I realized there is something in this old saying.

It was a new-born, just a few weeks old, still suckling on its mother who had given birth to five little ones this time. The mother is called Surumi, may be because she has beautiful eyes and she has been a favoured one with kids at home.

I think Surumi invited herself to our house the same way her ancient ancestor had walked into the abode of a tribal family in Mesopotamia, who had settled down to a life of agriculture some 12,000 years ago. Ever since, cats had been domesticated and women and children had a special relationship with them.

So Surumi was part of our household ever since she was a tiny kitten, and when she gave birth for the first time a few months ago, she had a poodle of five. They were living in the small work area near the kitchen and a few weeks later the little ones started playing around in the yard. But soon she lost all the kids for some reason or the other, and one of them got run over by my office car one day as I watched helplessly.

The driver had parked the car in the courtyard and nobody noticed the little kitten which found a nice place to play beneath the vehicle, and as I was coming out of the house, I saw the driver move the car a bit forward and then, a terrible cry erupted and in a moment I saw the blood-splattered body like a soiled piece of cotton behind the wheel.

I was shaken as I witnessed death taking place just in front of me. It was Surumi's last surviving offspring in her first delivery.

So this time, as she got pregnant again, I was keen she had better luck as a mother. She gave birth to five again, and one of them simply disappeared a few days later. Probably the stray dogs on the prowl might have made an excellent meal of her. These days the street-dogs have developed a taste for blood as they feed on slaughterhouse waste, dumped everywhere.

She was living happily with her remaining little ones and, everyday as I watered plants in the afternoon, I watched with amusement their play in the garden, often running and fighting and then training themselves in climbing up a tree or trying to catch a fly or a lizard. Surumi was not only a good mother, but a vigilant guide and a watchful teacher.

Day before yesterday, as I was sleeping I heard a soft mewing after midnight in my bedroom and I realized one of the kitten had got trapped in the room. But it was afraid of me so much that as I tried to coax it out, it withdrew deeper into the recesses of the room. Early in the morning, she got wind of her mother and ran out of the room, like an arrow released from the bow.

I remember it was the one with a long black line on the back of her white fluffy body. It was a weakling, often preferring to keep herself close to mother, while her brothers and sisters played around.

My wife was away and I had to get some breakfast ready before the children went to college and so I hurried to the kitchen. As I was working, I heard the same soft and weak mewing again, this time more terrified and pathetic. I looked around, but there was none to be seen. The mother and kids were there, but this time one of them was missing: the black-spotted one again.

It was surprising. The terrified mewing was heard continuously, but she was not to be seen. I searched all around and as I looked into the well in our little compound, I saw her precariously perched on the small round ring just above water.

So she had managed to fall herself into the well. It was unbelievable. The well has a protective iron ring around it with small holes and above it my wife had kept a wire-mesh net to stop leaves falling into the water. It was simply beyond me how she had got over all these obstacles to fall into the well.

But I had a rescue mission on hand. There was no way to climb down the rings and try to rescue her for two reasons. First, I could not go down easily because it is beyond my physical powers and secondly even if I went down how could I get hold of her? She was so terrified and surely she would struggle and might even jump, and that would mean both of us ending up in the water.

It was a tough to decide what to do. Then my friend Devadas, a historian who incidentally has written about Poochakkanam, the cat tax that Arakkal royal family in north Kerala had imposed on the beaches to protect the cats, rang up. He suggested sending a bucket down and trying to coax her to jump into it. I had requested Sujith, another friend, to come and help me in the rescue mission and we both got the bucket ready and tried our luck.

The bucket went very close to her and of course she knew it was a rescue mission. She touched it with her paw and as it moved a bit, she withdrew again in fear. It happened a few times.

Then I thought we should keep the bucket there and allow her to take her on own time. Let her decide whether she must choose life or death. And summon the courage to act. So we tied the rope on the iron grill and waited...

A few minutes later, she decided to take a chance and jumped into the bucket. She landed safely at the bottom of the bucket and then she lay there like a piece of cloth, wet and shivering...

Now as I write this, I can see her playing in the garden, happy and without a trace of the terrified look I had seen then. But what keeps me wondering is how she got my message. How did she guess the bucket that came to her was the proverbial ship in the deluge, that hand of God coming to lift her to safety and deliverance? Is there a universal language that helps all beings to be in communication with each other? I keep wondering about the mystery of mother nature as I see her there.