The neighbourhood tom cat

The neighbourhood tom cat!

The neighbourhood tom cat is a permanent visitor at our Enamavu house. We do not own him and all. He just passes by. He will throw a benign look at me and walk past. Once or twice he came close to me keeping his tail up and meavoing. He was about to rub on my legs he spotted my wife coming from the kitchen and took to his heels. As they both do not go together, he always glanced at me with surprise as to how I am continuing here!

That meeting made a beginning to our relationship. He will be found invariably around whenever we cleaned fish. The local market has a fish seller who brings fish in the evening. That is when we buy our daily needed fish as is usual in Kerala, the southern part of India. Cleaning small fish is easy. Once it is cleaned the left overs will be a delicacy for the tom cat and he patiently waited until I got up to put a few pieces near the coconut palm tree. Once I moved away, it is his time to have his delicacy. It is not that the cat is fully dependent on me. He gets his daily bread by the perspiration of his forehead. For that he moves around when we people are asleep. That is their time where they get their prey.They spend the whole night with wide open eyes to keep watch on the things moving at night and catches hold of whatever is his required prey from among the moving little animals or birds.

On full moon days he will be busy courting the female cats if they are around. We do not know from where they come. They all are there just like the stars in the day sky. We can't see them. They just appear at night and disappear during the day. The full moon days are very bright and the tom cat usually comes to full form on those days. On other days he moves around catching an occasional rat or any such animal for his food. Another of the delicacies were the green frogs which are now very rare.

During the days he retreats to the compound wall top, or to the wfirewood shed where dry palm leaves etc. are stored. Since this is a place which do not get wet even in rainy season he selected it as a safe haven for his day sleep and rest. I discovered him once aftger my trip to a distant place. Once back I was opening the shed to see my old bicycle when all on a sudden there was a commotion from the stored dry palm leaves which startled me. I froze to see if there was any longh snake in the palm leaves. But was soon very relieved to see the tom cat coolly and slowly getting up from among the leaves, climb up to a side stand, turn his head and look at me with glowing eyes with two thin lines at the apple of his eye, yawn ..opening all his mouth and protruding his tounge, almost saying that it was I who startled him from his siesta and looking at me with sleepy eyes. Once the yawn was over he walked or jumped out of the window which did not have a shutter almost saying: “Why don't you coming knocking or come when I am not there? You hum ans make it a habit to disturb others!” I just smiled. I knew him and he knew me. And firewood shed is a perfect place for him where no body disturbs him.

As time went on he picked up weight and was moving slowly. He had lost his earlier agility a bit. I was sad for him. He was aging. In the mean time, a new white she cat appeared with a little one on her side. The little cat started gorwing fast. Once it was almost becoming a youth, the she cat disappeared. Now it was the youth cat and the big tom cat moving around in the compound, at times under the coconut tree or in the near by compound or at the water channel. Once the youth cat was eating a huge rat when the big tom cat came around. The Youth cat reverently moved away leaving the food aside. Initially, the tom cat did not touch it. He just went and lied down near the food and started looking at the youth cat which had settled down a distance away. After a while, the old tom cat started eating slowly. The youth cat moved away.

There was something to the old tom. He was not his old exhuberent self fully. But how much time we can give to an old tom cat. I had to travel and hence to leave the place. After a month or so we returned and found there was a stench coming from somewhere. We went around and could not find anything for a while. Then we found the dead carcass of the old tom near the side of a motor house in the neightbouring compound where no body lives. The old tom cat had kept his regards for us even in old age death. He moved away from our house so as not to bother us with his body in old age. His half decayed body was disintegrating slowly becoming food for the trees and plants around leaving whatever came from the soil back to the soil and enriching it even in his death.

Now only the youth cat is left in the vicinity and he keeps on coming whenever I take fish for cleaning exactly as the old tom cat. Once he had his food he climbs up the compund wall during the day and does his half sleep with a very keen eye to who ever is moving around. From rats to little birds and frogs all he surveys in that sitting and whenever something worthwhile comes to sight then he is all action for a few minutes which is a marvel to see. Once his prey in his mouth he retreats to back of the firewood shed and returns after a while to his earlier position on the wall to lick and clean his hands and paws. By the evening he is more active and gets down to go to other compounds especially on days when the moon is bright!