At my hometown, we (the Family) have a very cozy little home. A place where everyone is welcome. Where guests, in accordance with the Indian traditions, are considered equal to God. But, sometimes we do have some unusual guests.
Like most of the B-Schools have visiting faculty, we have a visiting cat (my mom calls her Meow) at my home. This one comes to our place once in while and stays for a few days and then vanishes for a few days before coming again. This has been going on for many years now. And, once a year she will give birth to her litter at our place. My mom takes care of the Cat and her kittens till the time they suddenly vanish. Once in a while the kittens also come back to stay for a few days. And, over the years we have quite a few number of cats visiting our place.
This year also, the cat came and gave birth to 3 kittens. One grey and two blackies. All cute and small, but, one of them was a very weak. Small as a mouse, he could hardly walk. Even after a few days when others started walking around, this guy would just sit and watch the thin air around him. So weak, he could not even gather strangth to chase away the flies which came and sat on his lil nose.
Then one day when my mother woke up in the morning, she went to see the kittens and the cat only to see the empty rug there. The cat had vanished with two health kittens. The only one left was the weak one. Momma was so tense. This guy could die at any moment. She called up my father on what to do. We, took him in. Placed a nice warm towel on the center table in the drawing room. She called up a family friend who happens to be a vet. He was busy operating some animal and said could not come till late evening. The doc promised to send a junior, who arrived promptly. The doc first asked the kittens name, we dint have any to share. Promptly my mom named it “Kitty”. After a warm water-with-disinfectant bath, the Kitty was feeling dizzy, and dozed off. My mother was so tense, she thought the Kitty has passed out. My mother she is, she couldn’t help but cried.
The doc tried giving some milk laced with medicines, but the Kitty wouldn’t drink. No bread crumbs. No nothing. The Kitty wouldn’t eat at all.
After some time the senior vet came. He tried hard and kept giving small drops of enzymes to Kitty. After a four hour struggle, the Kitty had taken enough enzymes to feel hungry. Now, we tried giving him Milk and Cerelac paste, the kitty promptly licked it off my mama’s finger. After a spoonful of the mix, the Kitty fell asleep again. Mean while the vets left and advised my mom to keep giving the enzymes and milk to the lil one.
And, after two days of this routine, the Kitty started walking. My mother was so happy she picked it up and kissed. Now its been more than 10 days, the Kitty is running around the house and pussy footing around my mom’s feet where ever she goes.
Last night when I called her, she told me, the Kitty has become very naughty, he deliberately spills the left over milk from his feeding bowl. He keeps jumping around when she is cooking. This cutie doesn’t let mama sleep and will come and start nibbling at her toes when she’s sleeping.
Mama says she’s Kitty is troubling her a lot. I know, in her heart of hearts she wants Kitty to trouble her. She also likes it. She confessed sometime back that she feels as if she is rearing another toddler.
