Bagheera and Me

Pa got his transfer order to move to Secunderabad Cantonment in the spring of 2016. I remember Ma breaking the news to me with a serving of chocolate cake, grinning from ear to ear. She was a city girl, and after two and a half years of being stationed at Dinjan which was nestled among the tea gardens interspersed with gigantic trees, with very rare trips to nearby Tinsukia, must have been relieved at the prospect of moving out. In the following months, she had packed her crockery with great care, placing everything that tinkled and sparkled neatly in their cartons and fitting them like blocks of a Rubik’s cube in black trunks. Slowly, all the colourful things on walls, floors, and furniture too had made their way into the black trunks. Then, on one fine summer morning, the trunks were arranged like matchboxes in a truck and sent to Secunderabad.

I was 10 at the time, and my parents had taken me to watch The Jungle Book at the station movie hall, which screened movies every weekend. I was allowed to sit with my friends, as we were set to say goodbye to each other in a couple of days. After the anti-tobacco advertisement and the national anthem, the movie was screened. Fifteen minutes into it, I had turned into Mowgli. Everything afterwards was such an adventure. I didn’t care much about my popcorn being gobbled up by Rohit or my orange juice being slurped by Zarine. The movie got over much too quickly. As Pa drove us back to the guest house where we were staying, the fireflies lit up the ink-black high grass on either side of the road. I hoped to see a pair of yellow eyes. Rumour had it that a black leopard lurked there in the dark.

I was used to shedding the memories of a station off my back like a snake shedding its skin, once it was time. Otherwise, it would be too painful. But the yearning for yellow eyes stuck to me. My new home in Secunderabad too had wilderness around it. It was surrounded by tamarind, neem, and plumeria trees with patches of grass here and there. A few peacocks and pigs visited our backyard when the household was quiet, but they were no match for the magnificent black panther. My hopes of a Bagheera finding me were dwindling.

I got busy with school, and cricket coaching and tried to make new friends. Ma was happy with her regular outings into the city with her new group. Pa was immersed in hospital work. On a few afternoons, I was left in the care of bhaiyya (buddy assigned to Pa). He was a robust fellow who could dig up the backyard for a vegetable patch single-headedly, plant seeds, and pull out any weeds as soon as they appeared. On such afternoons, he allowed me to get my hands in the soil and study the worms, ants, and bugs that thrived there.

That’s when I spotted him first. A black kitten hiding behind a row of jasmine bushes. I tried to approach him but he ran away! The next day, after school, I saw him sitting near a circular patch of holy basil plants that was visible through the mesh door. I opened the door, and he ran away again! The day after, I saw him scratching the bark of the night jasmine tree. In my desperation to befriend him, I took a brick of butter from the fridge, opened the backdoor without a sound, and left it for him there. After I had retreated, he came near it, licked it twice, and didn’t turn up at my doorstep for three days.

Ma was not superstitious. She did not believe a black cat crossing your path is a bad omen. She was just not a pet person. Like with most of my secrets, she came to know about my new one within days. Like with most of my inclinations that didn’t suit her, she tried to rectify this one too.

“Don’t you have your schedule packed with school and all the other activities? Where do you have the time for a pet?” 

I knew better than to argue. When the battles were fought on the home turf, it was Ma who always had the last laugh. But this Mowgli was not going to give up on his Bagheera without a fight. The fact that here Bagheera was the cub and Mowgli the mentor, made my resolve only stronger.

I saved the bits of chicken from the curry and fragments of fish from the fry and offered them to Bagheera. I had to stand at a distance, and watch him nibble at it with his eyes closed and whiskers moving up and down. I knew the first time he did that, we were meant to grow together.

Soon, whenever I strolled in the backyard he crossed my path repeatedly, rubbing his soft body against my shins, cooing like a baby, and demanding food. I had a secret stash of cat food bought with my pocket money and fed him. He sat like a bunny on all fours and purred when I petted him on his back while he ate. It made my heart melt like butter on warm toast.

Pa caught me doing it first, and then he too was caught in my Bagheera’s charm. My pocket money was saved.

Ma saw the packages of cat food arrive through Amazon and conceded to having Bagheera fed on the porch. She ended up feeding him most of the time, and loved it!

Bagheera became a fluid fixture on the windowsills of our home. He would jump from outside onto the one in the room I was in, and lie down there; we were separated by the mesh but enveloped in warmth. He would jump up to the kitchen windowsill as well when Ma cooked something delicious, which delighted her no end. He liked to sleep rolled up in a furball on the chajja during winter days, his coat shining like ripe jamun.

Bagheera would wait at the doorstep in the morning when Ma opened the door, for his food. Afterwards, he would sit with his back to the mesh door, watching the birds and the butterflies that flitted in the garden. My eyes always lingered on his D-shaped back as I ate my breakfast. Then, he would disappear into the woods and come back only when he was hungry. I think Ma liked this about him, he was very independent.

On lazy Sunday mornings when I sat on the porch while he ate his food, and stretched his back afterwards, he would come to me, playful and elegant all at once. He would vibrate his tail and then roll over on one side, close his eyes, and purr when I ran my hand along his side. Then he would roll over to the other side. All the while being too shy to make eye contact. It took him months to look me in the eyes and talk!

On one cloudy morning, he brought a visitor. Another kitten. He persuaded and encouraged him to cross the threshold of the garden hedge and approach the porch to ask for food. I watched with a mixture of pride at his kindness and jealousy at his newly formed kinship. I am ashamed to say I drove the brown kitten away. I was not ready to share my Bagheera with anyone.

Bagheera did chase and catch the mice on several occasions in our backyard. It was never a ferocious attack, more like he was playing hide and seek with his prey! It was not a pretty sight. But that’s how he was supposed to live.

On some nights, I could hear him tumble into things and make angry noises at other cats. On the mornings that followed, he sported various scratches across his head and legs. Ma said that since he had become an adult these things were to be expected! After one such particularly nasty incident, his right ear was almost torn apart and he hobbled on his legs. It was painful for me to see him suffer like that. Pa got some medicine that Ma mixed with his food and he recovered slowly. I pleaded with him, “All the jungle is yours; you can fight everything you are strong enough to defeat. But for the sake of the child who fed you, never get into unnecessary fights”. And prayed every night that he wouldn’t get into another fight.

Months rolled into years and it was time again for us to move to a new station. A teen now, I could no longer shed the memories I had made as easily as before. It was hard to part with the place and friends. But the hardest part was bidding goodbye to Bagheera. After many discussions at home, we had decided it was best for him to stay in the wilderness he was born in, and not take him to the concrete jungle we were moving to.

After every box was loaded, and every pot removed from the porch, two blue ceramic bowls remained near the foot mat. I ran my hand on the velvety back of Bagheera as he enjoyed the goodbye breakfast. And whispered to him, “I know you are a jungle cat, and a kitten no longer. But I hope the doors of this house open for you again.”