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.

The Riddle of Barbie and the Diamond: a story

THE CHILDREN were terribly bored playing with the deer and parrots, climbing tall trees and bringing the ripe mango down with a single arrow.

Forest has its own limitations in offering entertainment. So they started fighting each other, dressed up as Rama and Ravana in the mega-movies.

Then one day, Sita told this story to her children as the poet, old uncle Valmiki, was busy working on his new poem:

Look children, there was this time traveller who came across a diamond in a waste heap in the Indian city of Ayodhya.

He was a curious kind of traveller, who travelled across time and space, flitting from the Mesopotamian mountains to the Chinese walls to the forests of Kilimanjaro to the dream-factories of Los Angeles.

He had seen Cleopatra lying dead in her royal chamber with a little snake on her bosom and Helen abducting with Paris, Alexander crossing over to India and then Americans pounding the Afghans.

Then, wandering in the streets, he came upon this diamond one day, lying abandoned and uncared for in a waste heap and no one seemed to notice how valuable it was. He had seen jewels in their infinite variety in his travels and he knew it was a great original that even Cleopatra would have loved to adorn her bosom.

But those were the days of fakes and in this strange city people thought every original to be a fake and every fake, a great original. It was a confusing and muddled place. Even their dressed gods were moving about in decorated chariots while the ancient idols, lost out in the race, kept themselves locked up in abandoned temples. He also saw painted beauties in the streets looking like painted dolls sold in the shops, and often the girls resembled their own favourite Barbies…

It was then he came upon this diamond, half covered with some old papers. He could not understand how it came there, in such a state, may be its owner threw it away, like the kids kicking out old toys getting tired of them. Possibly falling in love with some fakes as this city was full of fakes of every kind, from every part of the world. He imagined this diamond came as a trust from his mother, who gave it to him lovingly as she passed on to another world, or perhaps it just came to him as he walked aimlessly along…But that is past and he must be cuddled up with his Barbie now, happily forgetting himself in her voluptuous secrets.

So, the lonely traveller took the diamond, polished it and kept it in his pocket. It was a wonderful diamond, radiating a fresh fragrance that made him feel young and happy. Its graceful beauty becoming a kind of fascination for him; he fell in love with it, and often he worshiped it as if it were an idol.

But he was only a traveller given to the life on the streets and he knew he could not keep the diamond in his shabby baggage. It was a queen deserving royal bosoms. And a traveller must renounce everything, for travellers and sanyasins cannot keep valuables.

He must travel light, meet all kinds of people, good bad and indifferent, traversing jungles infested with robbers and oceans brimming with pirates and he could not peril his own life and endanger this beautiful idol, leaving it in the hands of robbers…

Then his travels became a search for locating its truthful owner and one day he found him, a prince with long and curly hair and enchanting eyes, who lived beyond seven seas.

Then it was a problem how to restore it to him. The traveller befriended a great bird whose powerful wings could take it across the seas effortlessly and he trained it to take his charge beyond seven seas, into the land where the prince lived.

One day, he saw it fly off with his beauty, deep into the blue sky, the lustre of his diamond still fresh in his memory…

Then Sita asked her children the following questions:

Children, what do you think the traveller felt as he saw the bird take off with the diamond in its bosom:

a) Happy, that it was going back to its rightful owner?

b) Unhappy that he was losing the diamond he loved more than his life.

c) Relieved that the last temptation in his life was over?

d) None of the above.

Come back to me with your answers tomorrow, my kids, she told them and sent them on to do their homework.

(Courtesy:ndtv.com/books/writingroom)