Independent As A Cat

Aaruni awakened with a start in response to the sound that was a personal alarm clock without a snooze button. She had gotten to bed quite late last night. It was nobody’s fault but her own. She always put off the hospital paperwork till the last possible moment despite knowing that it would come back to bite her later. Speaking of biting, she turned her head slightly and opened just one eye, trying to hold on to the last tatters of her slumber. There he was, sitting and staring at her with those huge, dilated eyes that made her heart fill up with unbridled affection every time; a fact she was sure the cat knew.

She stuck out her hand from the sweet warmth of her comforter and scooped him from on top of her nightstand into the embrace of her arms.

" Please go back to sleep, honey. Just for an hour or so.” She bargained.

The cat immediately jumped out of her arms in firm denial of her request. She sighed, threw off the covers to the side and pushed herself to her feet abruptly. This was the best way to wake herself up without falling back asleep. She put on a thick jumper and clicked her tongue twice, beckoning the feline to follow her to the garden for his morning exploration. The cat rushed out like a bolt of lightning and started sharpening his claws on the stem of the sacred Ficus she had planted years ago when she had first moved into the house.

He then proceeded to find a spot near one of the hedges for his daily excretion. She shook her head in indulgence. She couldn’t imagine life without him anymore.

At thirty-two, her mother was concerned for her future. ‘Future’ for women in India was usually synonymous with ‘husband’, and she did not envision the future for herself that her mother did.

“Every girl needs a companion in life.” Her mother reminded her every chance she got.

“I have a companion. And we never fight; even if we disagree at times.” She used to answer promptly, much to her mother’s dismay.

She closed her eyes and remembered the first time she had held a cat in her arms; the first year of med school.

************************************************************

Aaruni was sitting in the balcony of Lily’s third-floor dorm room. Lily had a year-old cat in her lap whose purring was audible in the quiet of the night.

She glanced towards the cat and made sure to keep a decent distance from it. Lily noticed her apprehension from the corner of the eye and chuckled.

“The kitten is smaller than your palm. Why would you be afraid of him?”

“It has claws. And it is a feral.” Aaruni shrugged.

Lily shook her head and dropped the matter. They continued talking for a few more hours; a comfortable companionship they could entertain only on weekends after almost everyone on the campus was asleep. Every few minutes, Aaruni glanced sideways at the cat nestled cosily against Lily’s stomach, with eyes closed in bliss.

“I have been afraid of them since I was six,” Aaruni confessed.

“Why, is what I want to know.” Lily reiterated.

“I watched a documentary on the Discovery channel. It said that cats are just smaller lions. They have similar instincts and they are loyal to places, not people.”

“That’s not true. I’m almost certain that if someone cares and loves lions, they too are capable of loyalty.”

This made Aaruni pause, and she stared at the cat uncertainly. He looked harmless enough, and additionally, so much cuter than lions. If she saw a soft toy that looked like him, she would most certainly add it to her constantly growing collection of stuffed animals.

She lifted her hand slightly to touch his furry head, when it woke up, stretched and started cleaning his claws. At the sight of the curved talons, Aaruni lost what little courage she had gathered and dropped her hand as she shifted further away.

Lily laughed so hard she snorted.

“It is like he knows I am afraid of him,” Aaruni complained.

“I’m sure he does. You should see how he chases you harder the faster you run to avoid him.”

Aaruni rolled her eyes, quietly conveying how unamused she was by Lily’s sadistic sense of humour.

As time passed, Aaruni and Lily became good friends. Aaruni, however, thought she sensed a distance between them. A distance that derived from the fact that they bonded over almost every commonality, except their opinions on animals.

Being a second child studying in an elite school that valued vanity over substance, Lily had few selfless friends. Her working parents were busy earning a good life for their family and rarely had the energy to emotionally invest in both their children at the end of the day. This was another thing that she and Aaruni had in common. However, Lily found solace in the company of numerous animals that roamed around her suburban home. A dog, several cats, birds - all helped her cope with her loneliness.

Unfortunately, Aaruni never had much contact with animals at the city apartment she lived in. Added to that, her parents repeatedly told her to not touch animals making sure that she developed a paranoid certainty that all animals were prone to violence.

This created a rift between the two girls, which created a narrow, but the persistent rift between them. Aaruni also envied the contentment that shone in Lily’s eyes every time she was around an animal. She wondered what it must be like to be able to give and receive affection that was so unpolluted by human faults.

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A few months later, they had been out to a restaurant for dinner which they had been looking forward to for a few weeks, but couldn’t get the reservation until now.

They put on their best outfits and even put on some makeup for the occasion. Upon reaching, they were shown to their seats. They looked around, taking in the décor, and surreptitiously glancing at the nearby tables to get inspiration for their food order.

They had been looking at the menu for a few minutes when a small family came and took the table next to theirs. They had brought a large Alsatian dog with them that slowly filled Aaruni with dread. She had a been chased by an Alsatian as a child and she was more significantly scared of that breed than any other. She pushed her chair to the corner of the table that was furthest from the dog and tried breathing evenly. Even so, she knew the dinner would not go as she had envisioned.

Sure enough, Lily turned her chair towards the dog and started petting the canine excitedly. Her excitement was equally matched by the dog who licked her hand and put his front paws on her knees. Aaruni said nothing, knowing that Lily’s attention would now be on the dog the whole time they were there, and any conversation they had would be obligatory at best. As annoyed as she was at Lily, she realized even at that moment, that she was angry at herself. She felt frustrated at not being able to share the one thing that mattered most to her closest friend.

As the main course was cleared away and they waited for the dessert, Lily noticed the uncharacteristic silence of her companion.

“You’ve been quiet today. Something wrong?”

Aaruni was about to tell her exactly what she had been thinking but held herself back. She couldn’t hold Lily accountable for her fear. If she did, Lily would force herself to pay more attention to her and make a conscious effort to spend less time with animals. This would only make her feel miserable and Aaruni would feel guilty.

So, she said nothing, simply shook her head in the negative. Lily shrugged, realizing Aaruni didn’t want to talk about it, yet.

When they returned to their dorms, the infernal cat was sitting on Aaruni’s doormat right outside the room. Upon seeing them, he raised his eyes and rolled over to expose his belly. It was a gesture that would disarm the hardest of hearts.

Aaruni sighed, letting out all the annoyance she had been feeling until that moment. She sat down on her bed in the lotus position, placed a thick blanket on her lap and looked expectantly at Lily.

“Um, what are you doing?” Lily asked as she lifted the cat into her arms.

“Bring him over here. Teach me how to hold a cat. Also, and this is very important, how do I make sure I don’t get bitten or scratched?”

Lily’s face lit up like the lights of a fairground at night. She rushed to Aaruni’s side and placed the cat close to her.

“Just touch his head gently. Stroke him.” Lily instructed.

Aaruni did as suggested. At the first touch of his tiny head, she was amazed by how soft his fur was. As soon as the cat felt her touch, he nudged her palm with his nose and started purring loudly. Aaruni burst into a delighted giggle. She carefully lifted the cat and placed him in her lap.

“Welcome to your first pet. There’s no going back now.” Aaruni smiled wider, her eyes gazing lovingly at the ball of fur on her lap.

“You do know that this cat is mine now?”

Lily laughed indulgently. “No, he isn’t. You’ll soon realize that you don’t own cats. They own you.”

************************************************************

As the years passed, Aaruni and Lily started taking care of several more cats that roamed around the dorms. They soon got famous as the cat whisperers, the women every cat owner reached out to if they had problems.

When the time came for them to graduate and go their separate ways, they realized that the joint custody of the cats would have to be renegotiated.

One night, a few days before graduation, Aaruni sat with Lily in the same balcony they had spent so much time talking, laughing and simply enjoying each other’s company; usually accompanied by a cat(s).

“I can never thank you enough for bringing this whole new dimension of happiness into my life. Something I would have missed out on if not for you.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. You did the work. Overcame your fears. I was a facilitator, at best.”

Aaruni rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever. I know you are fishing for compliments and I’m no mackerel.”

Lily sighed contentedly leaning back against a wall.

“How do we divide the cats?” Aaruni asked what the two of them had been dreading for months.

“You take the older ones. They are better behaved and don’t need to be potty trained. I’ll take the younger ones.”

Aaruni nodded in assent. Lily’s brother was a veterinarian and had more patience with animals. Aaruni’s family had never had a pet before and they needed to be warmed up to them.

“Who will take Gator?” Aaruni wondered aloud. Gator was the cat that we’ve talked about. The one who was her first.

“You will, of course. First pets are not easy to let go of.” Lily answered in a matter-of-fact voice, making Aaruni happier than she had been in the past few days. The impending pain of separation from her closest friend was weighing heavily on her mind and she was glad she would have Gator to offer some consolation, at least.

************************************************************

Aaruni’s mind snapped back to the present by the feeling of Gator’s soft head rubbing against her leg. She smiled at him with the summed-up affection of all the years. Gator was the one constant in her life through so much, for almost eight years now.

He was a keepsake from her past with Lily. He was the first selfless love of her life. He was the one who somehow knew every time she was hurt and nestled in her lap to offer comfort, even during the times she felt the most alone. He had been with her as she had lost the other cats to old age or disease. She was grateful to the fates that she still had her first furry friend with her.

She and Lily tried keeping in contact during the years after graduation but the life of a doctor in India, along with the significant distance between them made it difficult. They still made it a point to meet each other at their homes, twice a year on their birthdays. They barely ever went out, being too busy with catching up with the others’ pets.

A close friend, an unconditionally affectionate pet and a flourishing career; a woman could easily do without anyone else in her life.