A Daughter This Time

I have not posted anything in a long time because my boys were going through a long spell of illness and I did not feel like writing about them under the circumstances. But something has happened to shake me out of my self-imposed lethargy. I have acquired a daughter!

On the 21^st of July, I heard plaintive crying in the landing outside my house. Assuming that the cat sitting there belonged to my 2^nd floor neighbour, who is the only one besides us in the building who has a cat, I went to enquire if she had lost her cat. No, she said, her cat was quite un-lost. Feeling sorry for the stray, we tried to give it away but found no one even remotely interested. Unwilling to leave her to the mercy of the world, I took her in hoping that one of the NGOs working with strays would be able to help.

That did not happen. They were all quite unhelpful despite all that they say in their ads. One lady I talked to was rude in the extreme and all she cared about was getting the cat spayed irrespective of the risk to her health or life. By then I had made up my mind. I would keep her. That evening we took her to our vet. He examined her and pronounced her healthy. The spaying, he declared after examination, would not be risky. I would have to care for her for a week to allow for her recovery. Since I had already decided to keep her, this was not a big concern. She had her surgery on the 24^th. She is quite all right now. She plays and runs and jumps and puffs up to twice her size upon sensing my boys on the other side of the closed door before greeting them with growls, hisses and yowls of anger.

It hasn’t been easy. Not by a long stretch. She is slowly adjusting to her new life, which is diametrically opposite to her previous one. She hasn’t yet adjusted to my boys and they have to be carefully kept apart. She is forever hungry, it seems, and hasn’t yet come to terms with the fact that food will not be scarce any more. She is very sweet, friendly and affectionate but suddenly gets agitated and aggressive even without provocation. She has been dewormed but her other vaccines are still due. It will be a challenge to remain patient and affectionate with her given that she now reigns over one of the bedrooms almost the entire day. Our boys have been great sports, accepting her and the changes that have come along with her. They have been trying hard to make friends though success is still far. I couldn’t ask for more cooperative boys.

I have named her Eva. Those who have seen ‘WALL-E’ will understand why. She really is sweet and affectionate. She is this thin, small thing with a tail that seems to reach from here to the moon! She is intelligent and has already developed some good habits. She wears her colourful collar with the red bell quite coolly. This by no means proves that I have belled the cat, though! It has been only ten days since I found her out in the corridor. There is a long and hard path ahead for all of us—humans and cats alike. Here’s hoping for the best!