Topic started by vj on Sun Jun 27 20:39:53 .
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I love my cat. I call it Lovely. For truly it is a lovely being. It is silvery, smooth, single and secretive. It is very intelligent and consequently has many ideas. For a cat, it is very talented. I shower all my love on it. It takes all of it. It wants something more. I can give only how much and only from what I have. It doesn't understand. It snarls, purrs, whines and wants more. Yesterday it got violent. It swiped its paws at me. I got hurt.I went to the doctor who cleaned and bandaged my wound. I am trying my best. I tell the cat this. I am telling it that our thing will work. I also tell it that all it requires is a little understanding on its part. It is not convinced. It smiles its enigmatic smile. It apathetically goes to sleep. I am crying by its bedside. I am shedding lots of tears. I love it. I really cant live without it. I am doing all I can. I can't bear its smiles, taunts, and its flashes of anger. And by accident the tears fall on the bandaged wound and the wound festers and burns more.
Months ago I gave it milk in its usual wooden cup. It demanded the new melamine dish. I told it that it would be unable to drink without breaking the dish. I also told it that cats are cats and God intended not to give it dexterity to drink from melamine dishes. It didn't understand. It snarled that I had no faith in its abilities and that I no more like it well enough. I tried to convince it that I always would love it with all warmth in my heart and that this is no inability on its part but that this is the way God made it. It got upset. This ruined the whole day. It sulked. It didn't drink milk for the next few days. It became weak and irritable. It kept hurling taunts and abuses at my family. It was dying. I begged it to drink some (milk). I cried the whole day. My eyes were swollen and red. Taking pity on me finally, it drank some. It is in these moments that I love it like mad for its magnanimity. I can't imagine how I would have lived without it. Still, it doesn't understand.
In the first years, it used to nuzzle on my lap. I used to like it. I used to shower kisses on its fur. It reveled in them. It loved getting its fur wet with saliva. It stopped doing it last month. I asked why. It snapped. It started to accuse me of being selfish and thinking only about my needs and liking. I realised my selfishness and apologised. It said that words once said cannot be taken back. As a punishment I promised to ask less and give more. It was appeased. But that was an illusion.
A few weeks back it taunted me for being stuck up. It said that I couldn't request it to come and sleep on my lap because I was stuck up with a big Ego. And that it is a very human thing. It also mocked at my being unable to declare how much I liked physical contact. It joked about how humans are so hypocritical about their desires having separate rules for that of the mind and that of the body. I cried. I couldn't hear them anymore. It left me crying, with its smug indifference.
Now it is difficult to place my finger at what is going wrong. I know it would be very bad if I were to blame Lovely for it is a thinker and thinkers have their eccentricities, and it would also be unfair to me if I were to blame only me. I am sure I may have dome some wrong somewhere but all I ask of it is to condone it in the name of my unswerving love. I have never looked at any one else and I am sure I will never have with that anyone else the same kind of feelings that I have with Lovely… But why am I unhappy with our life? Definitely something has gone wrong somewhere and it is this vacuous feeling of not knowing and
inability to know that is ruining my life... was I destined to live like this? More tears are now falling on my wound and it festers and burns more with a new- found fuel.
And half-a-month earlier a stray cat had given birth to 3 kittens. I told Lovely in bed that I wish we had kittens as lovely as them and it got up angrily and threw at me the wooden cup for hinting at its inability to fertilise me. I cried out that what I meant was not that but was just used as a metaphor for admiring the kittens. That night it spitted at me for the first time.
The other day it was thinking about why cats have to be chased by dogs and I was in a romantic mood. So I dimmed the light and sneaked up to it and whispered endearments in its ears in an attempt to get it involved in my mood and all it did was to burst out laughing at how stupidly emotional we humans are. My night was spoiled and a rare thing happened. I called it mean. I, of course, did not mean it but it took it very seriously. It first praised me for getting the courage to tell it in its face and then went on to rant about how I deserved it for all the little love I am showering on it over the past few months and I felt bad for having called my Lovely mean and I profusely apologised. It smirked and went to sleep.
And yesterday it gets upset over how boring and mundane life with me is and that I am nothing but just another uninteresting mediocre human with stale ideas and cliched opinions and that love had given it an illusion of knowing me very well as an interesting, strong individual and how wrong it all is now, and so tears of frustration swelled in its eyes and it swiped its paws violently at me and I am crying here, my wound festering and burning more.
It told me a story about 5 days back. The story was of a jail. It said that there exists a jail called life in which all animals, plants, and humans and all other forms of life live in. It told me that while plants
do not see the jail, animals can sense it, which makes them all restless and how humans only have the ability to understand how the jail works. It knows of lots of humans who have not even seen the bars, it has seen humans sense the presence of the bars and sigh that they would never be open and carry on with their mouse-lives, it has seen some special humans realise that the jail has no lock and then get out of it and, it has also seen some humans realise that there is no lock and afraid of what's outside stay inside it living one of the saddest lives on earth... It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention but something struck Lovely that I was not concerned... It branded me another mouse and in a very excited state screamed about how painful it is feeling about not having the ability to get out as i t, like all other animals, has been condemned to a restless life. And it got violent on seeing my impassive look and stretching forward meowed so loudly that I was genuinely afraid of it for the first time in my life.
I can never figure what it is and what it is thinking but one thing is sure ... I love it with all my heart and I cry more on hearing me thinking about the time gone by and I think of its ever enigmatic smile, its teasing purr, its soft skin, its sweet meow and it dawned on me that I have not married the cat I wanted to marry. But that is not reason sufficient not to love Lovely. Is it ? The more I think of it the more I get confused
about love and its causes and effects and the more I cry. I am crying now profusely and I take a good look at my wound. It has festered and it looks like it has to be cut away, But, no how can I allow a part of my skin to be removed. No way…
I cry more and more tears fall on the wound. It no more burns. It is now understandingly numb. It is time to get on with being a mouse.
9 August, 1998
© Vijayanand Subramanian
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