Retirement of a favourite blogger...

Rhonda Hetzel, author and long-time blogger decided to stop blogging for good this week. Over the years, her blog Down to Earth has been a source of great inspiration, archive of wholesome reading, gateway to more wholesome internet content, and a model on how to lead a satisfied and productive domestic life. The announcement made me very sad and it led to thinking about my own blog.

Back when I started in 2010, this blog was a way to make me stop procrastinating about writing. Over the years, it became a journal of sorts as I blogged about our travels, daily life, and special events. I still love reading over the early posts, especially those starring my kids and furry friends. But then real life and COVID intervened. Yes, I was still writing, but I found blogging to be a chore. I kept thinking, "What's the point?" and opened the blog only when I had something I really wanted to say. But the more I waited for such opportunities to come, the longer I had to wait, till I was blogging next to nothing. 

But not any more! Hetzel's retirement and a dear friend's inquiry about why I am not blogging any more has made me rethink my 'waiting to be inspired' strategy. So here I go again...

Let me start with Karthi, our home. Over the years, her exterior had grown grungy and marred with cracks, fissures, and algae abstract art...

 

So we decided to get her painted again with new-fangled moisture-blocking undercoats and to freshen the damp proofing of the roof. The first step was pressure-washing the whole exterior, which took a whole day, around 3000-3500 litres of water, and presented us with a whopping electricity bill in February. It was good that we had decided to damp-proof Karthi's roof back in 2011, because it stood up wonderfully to the pressure washing. The contractor and the painter said that when they had done on the same on a house younger than Karthi, the plastering had broken up into cement chunks and sand and they had had to re-plaster the roof.

Within three weeks in January, Karthi was utterly transformed. The tired faux wood work of the porch gleamed again...

The front door took a well-deserved day off its hinges, got a sanding and a spray coat and was back at its post by the evening...

 

and the whole house got the look of a demure Malayali maiden decked out in a mundu and neryathu set with a tamarind-leaf green border. It makes me hum "Puliyilakkarayolum pudava chutti" whenever I return home from a jaunt and see Karthi peeking through the trees...

 

As you can see, the cats were actively involved in supervising the painting process, as in barging in on the painters at meal times and begging for food. The painters deemed Pirate and Akrami very well-mannered because they didn't grab and run like other feral cats, but made polite requests and waited patiently to be served! 

Now that Karthi is looking spiffy on the outside, the interior looks dingy!!! We have plans, yes, we have plans. But some cannot be put into practice for six months because the exterior moisture barrier will drive the remaining moisture in the walls to the interiors in the coming months, and will be safe for painting only by June. Already we are seeing bubbling and flaking off in several ground floor rooms, likely to grow worse in the coming months. 

That's it for today. The past one and a half months have been unusually hectic and discombobulating for a new year. More on that next week!

New dawn... new day... And the return of a prodigal!!!

My life in the new year has been like the comic video of Jagathy Sreekumar that was doing the rounds during the first five days of 2022...

I have a planner, I have a habit checklist printed out on an excel sheet, I have reminders on my phone, but when it is time produce something creative, such as a post on this blog, I fall back down, slouch, and then mutter, "I'll do it tomorrow."

Which is not to say that I have been completely idle: being a homemaker and a busy freelance copy editor precludes that.

So let me tell you that one of our new year gifts was not quite apparent at all. As you know, the itinerant cat population at Karthi fluctuates almost everyday (Please check my posts with the label 'Cats' to learn about the ongoing saga). As the local cats know, there is always a bowl full of food left out on our porch, not in plain sight, mind you, but behind a jaali, where a cat in the know can access it if they are courageous enough to climb our front steps. Many a time we have surprised strange cats who, according to the level of phlegm in their nature, have either sped away or casually strolled away after flicking a disdainful tail at our inquiries. Our current, somewhat regular cats, are Pirate and her children from several births, Tukey, Topi, and their elder brother Ellesmere (my original name for this cat was actually Ella, until I discovered, ahem, that he wasn't a she, so I borrowed a name from the Outlander series!)

In the second week of January, we noted a new, disreputable-looking tom cat that came in Tukey's company. Tukey is a half-grown tom cat and we wondered how he could have established a relationship with a strange tom cat. One thing we noticed was that this new cat was not at all afraid of us. He shared Tukey's food and lay placidly on our door mat. We tried shooing him away as we felt he would challenge Ellesmere (who is a fluffy, cuddly, darling who barely tolerates our going silly over him). But the new yellow and white cat didn't scare easily. Two days later, Ani called me to the porch, 

"Amma, I think this is Akrami!" 

I reached the porch to see the strange cat ensconced in his lap, making no effort to get down. 

"Ani!!! You should know better than to cuddle strange cats like that!!!" 

"But that's what I meant, Amma! I think it is Akrami. He didn't object at all when I put him on my lap. Would a strange cat let me do that? And look at his front feet, see, those marks look like the injuries he had when the dog attacked him!"

I took a closer look at the cat. He was marked all over with scars of battle and had patches of skin showing through his fur at different places. Especially notable was a slanting slash over one eye that acted as a single eyebrow giving him a sardonic expression. 

"I don't think it is Akrami. He has the same coloring, but it can't be him!"

The child who was the closest among us to Akrami wasn't so easily convinced. This is a picture of them taken back in 2016 or so...

He took pictures of the cat on my phone and brought them to me. 

"Amma, let us check Akrami's old pictures."

I delved into the Pictures folder on my computer and found old photos and videos, and there it was! The markings were uncannily the same!! The yellow on the new cat was a bit darker and he had clicked pictures of the new cat from only one side. So I asked him to click more to make a thorough check...

 

As you can see, he was pretty thorough this time, clicked from almost all angles! So we presented our findings in the family council. The council decided that he would have to undergo a battery of tests to see if it was indeed the old Akrami. Till he passed those tests, DH gave him a provisional name: Akrala. The 'la' stood for 'look-alike'. 

First we administered the Pirate test. We observed closely when Pirate came. She slapped him within the first five minutes! Akrala thus passed test number one. 

We got hot ulli vada from our favorite tea shop. We gave him pieces from a lukewarm one at first. He was not very interested. DH put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and tried again. This time, the cat eagerly fell on the vada and finished off all the pieces! Test number two was passed with flying colors!

He started lording it on our doormat, curling up on it comfortably. That was his favorite pose in his heydays and when Raj came up the front steps, he didn't even open his eyes... Akrala passed yet another test!

He started demanding food from us first thing in the morning, and no cat has been as importunate as that from us except Akrami. Voila, yet another test passed.

Yesterday, I was making dosas when I took a fresh one to the porch and dropped a piece in front of him. He ate it up, looked up at me and mewed. Just like he used to do while asking me for food! I dropped more pieces while DH took care of making the next few dosas. In my heart, I changed Akrala to Akrami in that instant!

Today, while we had our breakfast after giving him his, Akrami was lying on the doormat, pretending that he was lord of all he surveyed. On a whim, I called out, "Akramiiii". He turned his head majestically towards us. I repeated it when he turned away, and he again looked back at us. 

Yet another confirmation came this evening. We had saved chicken scraps from lunch for him. Ani gave them to him and we heard him going, "Nomm nomm nomm"!!!!! The very enjoying sounds he used to make when we gave him his favorite food!!!

No doubt there will be more tests and more confirmations. He has changed a lot. He isn't as chatty as he used to be. He is tougher. Then he used to cringe and go away when he was beaten by Pirate, but now, he growls back at her, and she seems to be in awe of her sire, not impudent as of old. He drove off Ellesmere when he came to visit us two days ago, but we are not complaining. DH scolded Pirate when she batted him on the head today because she didn't want to share breakfast with him!!! Just like old times! 

To think that if Ani had not been observant like he is... we would have missed our New Year gift!!!

Today, I heard DH making up the story of where Akrami has been for the past two years. It started with "Having eaten two pieces of chicken on Christmas day in 2019 and chatting with my family, I decided to sleep it off on the undercarriage of a lorry." To summarize, the next time Akrami opened his eyes, he was in the border town of Punalur and it took him two years and occasional glimpses and near misses till he made his way back to our home! I must tell DH to write it down some time. Might be a bestseller!

Glimpses from two years...

Compared to the photo folders starting from 2002, when we first switched to digital cameras, the one for 2020 is very sparse. Then, to my horror, I discovered that I had even omitted to make a folder for this year - 10 months into 2021! All our pictures are still on our phones and have not been synced. A mistake that I have sought to rectify. Along the way, I saw a few pictures that I wanted to share with you—in no particular order. I've highlighted earlier references to my blog in green. Click on them if you want to read more!

Celebrating my birthday with my sis and nephew (behind the camera) during MBIFL 2020. The last memorable time I visited a restaurant for a sit-down meal, I think.

 

Row of Ponkala pots waiting for the consecration and a line of devotees waiting for lunch... Last public function/festival attended..

.

The streets were quiet, no growling, prowling beasts. So the peafowl chose to cross over from the wildernesses and grace our yard.

My first haircut during the lockdown. Poor Ani was the guinea pig. I had put the trimmer at the longest setting for the back and sides. Unfortunately, Kunju distracted me as I was tapping off the hair on the trimmer and the length went to zero. I kept my head and uttered not one peep when disaster struck in the next swipe. Even while taking this picture, Ani didn't know how his haircut actually looked. It was two days later that he came to me saying, "Amma, I don't know why, but a part of the back of my head feels very prickly." I RAN!!!

 

My painting helper who made the project a breeze. Very protective of his coiffure, as you can see...

 

The black and white kitten who grew up into an exceedingly handsome tuxedo cat with white gloves and socks. He was so fond of snuggling that if he was allowed inside while I was doing Sudarshan Kriya or meditation, he would curl up in my lap and lie there the whole time. It helped center me better. He has since disappeared, but we are grateful for all the lockdown cuddles and candid picture moments like this...

 

Teach a kid to make chappati dough and he will give you this! I screamed when I opened the container to make the chappatis!!!

A picture that I love looking at and a process that I will never, ever repeat! Much as the color gradient is attractive, it was a headache to find books. Yikes!!!

 

Soaped hands are germ-free. Give soap to a teen with too much time on his hands and...

 

My coral jasmine making me smile in the midst of the pandemic. 

 

A pair of Indian cormorants nesting in Thekkady, the only trip we undertook in December before things got really bad Covid-wise in Kerala. 

No words required! Enjoy!!!

Working from home? Avoid this as much as possible!!!

One thing I have envied among several of my DH's admirable traits is his ability to drop off to sleep quite quickly. Once he decides to sleep, he folds his hands on his forehead for a few moments of prayer, then arranges himself on his back with his fingers neatly interlaced on his chest or lies on one side. The next thing you know, he is off gamboling among the sheep on the grassy meadows in the land of Nod. It doesn't bother him even if the light is on or there is a panchari melam going on outside our window. He prefers having at least a night light on and music playing in the background as he drops off to sleep.

In fact, this was one bone of contention in the early days of our marriage. I need pitch darkness and absolute silence to relax and sleep. After my prayers, I first have to lie on my right side, rest a few moments and then turn to the other side before I can drop off to sleep. Even then the goddess of sleep is very picky about granting her boon to me. "Going to bed after 11 p.m.? Toss and turn for half an hour!" she will curse with glee. "Couldn't put the book down till midnight before courting me, eh? Lie there, listening to the night sounds for one more hour," she will chortle. And if I watch a horror movie any time of the day? She will flounce off altogether, allowing all the horrendous characters of the movie to lurk in the corners of our bedroom, staring at me with glowing coals that are their excuse for eyes. And I will be left, clutching a slumbering DH's slack hand for reassurance and chanting the ten names of Arjuna to keep me safe from fear. She is so fickle that sometimes, even without any reason, she will just refuse to appear.

So it was with great surprise that we both noticed that DH was lying awake for long stretches in the third month of the lockdown. He started complaining of very fitful sleep. He also complained of getting up several times during the night. One night, I got up to find him on the living room sofa, watching a football game's highlights on his phone. "Hey, that is my thing!" I told him, meaning the vigil on the sofa, of course, not watching football. I don't do anything except read on my sleepless nights.  

I put it down to the stress of the times. After all, he is snowed in with work and absolutely misses our trips to his family and traveling in general. He also misses not going to the theaters to watch movies. I thought that all that was playing havoc with his peace of mind. DH is a great worrier even in normal times. But even in periods of greater stress than this, I had never seen him lose his sleep. Soon, his sleeplessness affected me too. Even though I religiously kept to an early bed time, turned myself as per my schedule, etc., I too lay sleepless. I tried to blame my sleeplessness on the new extra-bright LED streetlight that had been newly affixed near our gate and even plotted throwing a stone at it.

But last Monday morning, I was practicing Sudarshan Kriya when it suddenly came to me. (This has become a somewhat regular occurrence of late - I get ideas and solutions while doing Kriya or Sahaj Samadhi meditation). The brainwave was this: our bedroom is being affected by too much work energy! When the lockdown started, DH started working in our living room. Gradually, he started shifting to the bedroom post lunch because he wanted to leave the living room free for the kids to watch TV. Our younger one, would initiate the "transfer protocol" the moment he finished his lunch by carrying DH's laptop and other accessories to the bedroom without being told, so that he could start watching TV that much earlier. 

Even when June rolled around, online classes started and our kids' TV watching was restricted to after 9 pm, DH was still shifting work to the bedroom after lunch. Understandably, his shifting guy now had to be asked to help each day! The hunch that I got was that all that work was destroying the relaxing atmosphere of our bedroom, robbing us of our sleep. Therefore, I asked DH to remain in the living room the whole day instead of working in the bedroom. 

I am very glad to report that DH and I have been sleeping much better since the change. The first few nights were still rather restless ones, but there has been definite improvement. So much so that I have decided that the new street light will be safe from me for the time being. So if any of you have a bedroom doing double-shift as a home office and find yourselves having trouble sleeping, try working from another room and banish all work-related paraphernalia from the bedroom. Wait at least a week or two to see if it works!

Last Saturday, Chunchu and Pirate, our visiting cats brought us some more company and introduced them to the food bowl at Karthi!

They were both predominantly white, with little to distinguish between them at first glance. In a textbook case of inverted racism, I lamented the fact that we never seemed to get kittens or cats with more color to them than this "boring white". The cat family left and then came back with a new addition!!!

The white kitties have a brother!!! We promptly named him Jack after Susan Branch's kitty who appears regularly on her blog. So one of his sisters simply had to be Jill! The other sister has slightly longer hair fluffed out all around her, so we named her Fluffy. Just look at the three posing near our sanitiser bottle!!!

Here is Fluffy trying to climb our screen when our Lab Goldie made her first appearance in their lives! As usual, on her evening run, Goldie tried to come up the porch steps to meet us, but Chunchu and Pirate blocked her at the top of the steps and hissed and swiped at her. Goldie could easily dispatch both with a lash of her tail, but our goofy Lab beat a strategic retreat rather than get a scratched nose. 

Aww, aren't they cute??? Please feel free to gush over the overload of cuteness! Pirate is quite nonchalant about her brood. And we are so happy that we have got to see Akrami's grandkids!

All three kitties have already learned that the kitty bowl at Karthi is always stocked up with snacks. All day yesterday they rushed in whenever they heard the front door open to restock on food after all the combat practice they put in together. Even today morning, all three rushed in by themselves! For the time being, our garage is their home. 

Already they are exhibiting unique characteristics. Fluffy, as you have seen, is scared easily. Jack is always looking for nooks to explore and Jill is feisty. She played football with our elder son, talked back at DH when he refused to allow her to jump up on the sofa and sat calmly for a few moments in my hand and looked me directly in the eyes before indicating that she would like to get down. Her siblings were pure scrambling panic when I picked them up. Jack has two little white mittens and knee socks on his hind legs as well as a white shirt front and pink nose. He is so adooooorable! 

Be advised, if they like Karthi enough to stay, there will be more kitty pictures coming your way!

And the cats keep coming...

Akrami has not come back so far. Last week, as we came back home, the kids saw a similarly colored cat running away from our porch. All of us ran after him calling out loud, but of course it was not him. A few weeks ago, DH finally broke down and asked our neighbor about him and she too said that she felt he was gone because he didn't come around whenever fish was delivered at her home. But two days later she called out to us and said someone had seen him wandering in the valley below our hillock. We took it with a pinch of salt, because nothing could have prevented him from coming to our place, nothing.

Meanwhile there is no dearth of cats at Karthi. Here is Akrami's wife Chunchu...

As you can see she shares her husband's love of yoga and the ability to make herself comfortable wherever she is. Her greatest drawback as we see it is her lack of conversation.And her high-pitched mew simply grates on our nerves, but we tolerate it as she is our daughter-in-law.  Here are the kittens she brought with her the first time over.

She brought two little 'uns that you see in the front of the picture. Then there was a half-grown cat who is staring directly at us at the back. Of course we had to name her Pirate for the black patch!

We were happy when we saw Chunchu pregnant and then brought us her kittens. But we soon noticed that she kept away Akrami and tried to insinuate her kids into the house whenever we weren't paying attention. We assured her as we do all cats that she is allowed to use the enclosed garage, but sorry, we couldn't have her in the house. 

One day when the cat family was here, DH brought home some ulli vada and called out to Akrami. Akrami came over the wall and was making his leisurely way to the porch. That is when a tan and black Pirate streaked past us. She went right up to Akrami and slapped him on the cheek! We were all so stunned! Akrami, the poor guy, quietly turned back and went away. DH was so incensed that he ran off Pirate, the kittens and Chunchu. He made it quite clear to them that Karthi was Akrami's home first and no one should drive him away. I can tell you that Pirate was persona non grata for a long time. Only Chunchu returned meekly with Akrami for food.

For all her slim looks and meek little mews, even Chunchu could be aggressive. One evening, Kunjunni gave them food in the cat bowl. We had craftily buried anchovies in rice mixed with curd so that they would have to eat the rice to reach the fish. There is only one bowl and Akrami doesn't like sharing bowl time. So he graciously allowed his wife to eat first and lay down just inside the front door, chatting to us. About two minutes later, Chunchu came and lay down beside him. By this time, Kunjunni and I moved to the porch steps to enjoy the evening sun. So we placed the bowl below the steps. Akrami strolled down and began to eat at his leisure. 

A few minutes later, Chunchu slowly nudged her way between us and went down and sat Sphinx-style in front of the bowl. A minute later, she tucked up her front feet beneath her chest and napped a little. Then she got up and swiped her right arm straight across Akrami's face. It was as though she were saying, "You lump, I ate just a little at first so that you wouldn't have to remain hungry for long. And here you have finished more than half already!"

Akrami didn't make any protest and just rolled on to his side beside the bowl as though that was all he had intended to do in the first place. He resolutely ignored two humans whose jaws had hit the step beneath them. Chunchu in the meanwhile ate so daintily, again avoiding looking at us gaping at her! My little feminist heart was torn between going, "My poor Akrami" and "You go, girl!"

One day after this incident, Akrami visited me in the afternoon, an unusual time for him. As I gave him food, he kept going to the entrance of our porch and looking out towards our neighbor's house. I asked him, "Are you scared that she will come?" and I kid you not, he looked up at me and said "Yes!" I laughed so loud and long that he looked thoroughly miffed! That day our kids learned a new acronym - BP (Bharyaye pedi - scared of wife/hen-pecked)!

Now Chunchu and her daughter come visiting from time to time. At the time Akrami disappeared, Chunchu was pregnant again. Last month, she brought home another pair of kittens...

They were almost identical with very few markings to distinguish them.  So we named the one with a vaguely 'M' shaped marking on her head Minnu and the other was christened Chinnu. As of last week Chinnu is missing, Minnu visits us with her mother and aunt during the weekends. 

Meanwhile Pirate is back on the accepted list. That is one cat who we'd like to know better. Because if we give her something that she likes very much, she too goes "Nomm, nomm" just like her father. And she can talk too. Last weekend she was on child-care duty. Minnu was crawling all over her, slapping her, biting her neck and rolling all over her. But she was very patient and didn't hit back at all. 

So no, there is no dearth of cats here at Karthi. But we still miss a yellow and white tom cat...

Have you seen this guy?

The last time we saw him was on Xmas day. I was frying chicken. He came right into my kitchen demanding that he be appeased immediately - regardless of whether the cooking process was complete or not. He circled the first piece ravenously, then tore off chunks that he almost swallowed, without his usual appreciative noises. And once there was no trace of that piece left, not even a bone fragment, he asked me for another. Which went the same way. Having appeased his greed for the time being, he stretched out on the verandah and chatted to us at length, possibly about the delicious smells wafting around the neighborhood on Christmas day. 

Our Akrami whom you have met in this post hasn't come to our doorstep for a month now. His family - his spouse Chunchu and his daughter Pirate who were introduced to us last year, come regularly to our house and deign to accept food from us. But they are not great conversationalists. Every time we cook chicken or fish, we go out and holler, "Akramiiiiiii.....", but no yellow and white tomcat bounds over our wall and meows his way into our home. In vain DH has twice bought his favorite ulli vadas from Sushama tea stall at Pothencode to tempt him. They had to be given to our dog. 

I was sorting our photos last week and found several of Akrami. Here he is when he still liked to climb in our laps and be petted before he considered himself too grown up...

Cuddling up on the shelf in the garage..

Displaying his yogic prowess...

Making friends with our new car Gertie so that he can be warm in the heavy monsoon...

Curled up as small as possible on our front mat...

A good way to know what has happened to him would be to ask our neighboring auntie at whose house he was as frequent a visitor as he was at ours. DH mentions it frequently, but we haven't the heart to go and ask. We would like to think he has gone on a walkabout...

Meanwhile, if you see a large yellow and white tomcat wandering in your neighborhood, please try calling him Akrami... If he answers, try enticing him with fried puris, crisp ulli vadas, chicken or dried anchovies. No milk please. Please make sure to give him food in small doses and wait till he asks for more like in this video...

Once his tummy is full and when he stretches out in a chatty mood, please tell him there is a family of four eagerly awaiting his return. 

Cat-scare!

We have a cat... Hmm... that doesn't sound quite true. It would be better to say the cat has us???

Anyway, this particular cat was left with us by the same mother cat who starred in this episode of the blog. She was a very prolific mother and we discovered that she was behaving exactly like a Malayali mother - in that she was shipping off her kittens to distant places by putting them on the engine floor of our car and have them hop off wherever DH parked. We were alerted to this trend by a few kittens who were not ready to leave hold of the apron-strings as yet and came back from his office with him and mewed to us plaintively from under the hood!!! 

So, back to the story of Akrami - the goon - as we call him. He came by this name because one of the first things he did after he got here was to scratch DH when he tried to get hold of the kitten. The doctor recommended a series of anti-rabies injection for the same. He is not a pet cat. He is to all intents and purposes a feral cat who occasionally visits us for food and shelter.

I would like to say that Akrami the kitten grew up to his name, and has become a magnificent tom cat who is the king of the neighborhood and so on. But it wouldn't be true. In fact, he is scrawny compared to some other tom cats in the neighborhood and very often we hear a screech and see him streaking away followed by bigger cats into the next panchayath. A couple of days later, he will appear with a swollen eye or scratched up visage and coolly ask us for food. His favorite hideout is our garage and an advantage of his scrawny stature is that he can crawl under the gate while his adversaries cannot.

Akrami has his preferences. He despises rice or milk. His favorite dish is dried anchovies followed very closely by chicken. He clearly shows his preference by actually going "Nomm, nomm" when he eats his favorite dishes. We give him food just to hear him eat with this audible sign of enjoyment. If we mix a bit of rice with his fish, he will dig out only the fish from the rice with all the delicate maneuvering of an archaeologist.  My DH who felt the fury of the little firebrand kitten is his biggest fan. DH who is a vegetarian and barely tolerates the aroma of frying fish and never touches non-vegetarian food will happily go to the local market, haggle with the dried-fish seller to buy dried anchovies and personally feed them to the cat. Akrami occasionally contributes to the family food kitty by leaving gifts of dead mice on our porch on some mornings. We accept them graciously and then bury them in the yard once he is gone.

This is how we usually find him in the mornings, right in front of our front door:

That is how he likes to sleep to the envy of the household that is rushing about here and there to leave in time for work. The front paw is there to stop any little ray of light that is intent on disturbing him.

For all his scaredy-catness, he is pretty independent too. Last year, we saw him nursing a swollen foot which looked in bad shape, but he would not let us get close to him to get him medical help. We decided that we should get him inoculated against rabies and this year, we managed to catch him in a thick jute sack and pacified him with anchovies till we took him to the vet and back. To his credit, he never treated us as enemies afterwards.

So we were astonished when Akrami hobbled up to us last week, with two swollen front legs, and a scratched up cheek and ear with pus oozing out of lesions on his legs. He wouldn't eat or drink, but sat on our front mat, crying pitifully. DH, who was down with a cold couldn't bear to see him in that shape. We bundled him up and took him to the district veterinary hospital. The prognosis was very bad - they x-rayed him to find no broken bones, but his liver and kidney were enlarged with infection and he had a very high fever. The doctor said that it looked like he had been bitten by a dog. We thanked God at that moment for giving us the forethought to have him inoculated.

But how to take care of a feral cat who is only half-domesticated? We put him in an unused room on the upper floor, washed his wounds everyday with saline solution and put antibacterial ointment on it, wearing gloves all the time. It hurt him, but he was too weak to protest. But he did take off the Elizabethan collar the first time we put it on him to prevent him from licking off all the ointment. But after that, he tolerated even that because he had used up all his energy jumping up and down to take off the collar. The true proof of his weakness came when we saw him drinking up hitherto despised milk! 

Altogether we took him three times to the hospital where he was given injections and intravenous fluids. At home we cleaned the wounds and fed him. But when we checked on him this Wednesday to take him to another vet appointment, we found that he had escaped from the upper floor room through the window!!! For two whole days we wondered if we would ever see our Akrami again.

Yesterday, he did appear, minus the Elizabethan collar. His wounds are still raw, but not suppurating any more. He is keeping himself very clean. He ate his fill of anchovies and a piece of boiled chicken and loudly clamored for more. It is clear that he is back in independent mode. Because he refuses to come in the house or be mollycoddled. 

Today morning, Akrami looked disdainfully at the milk DH left for him, but cleaned up the bowl after he had left for work. Here is a picture of him taken today morning:

The wounds are still very gruesome, which is why I haven't taken a picture in better light. But I think it will be enough to trust Mother Nature from now on to heal him.

Oh, what is that I hear? A very energetic mewing ... Akrami is here and he is hungry!!! Let me get him some food!!!

Kitty Saga - 3

New readers of notsoperfectkarthi, please read Kitty Saga - 1 and Kitty Saga - 2 (at the very end of that post) to bring yourselves up to speed.

It had been more than a month since Chakki had taken her kids off in huff after we had offered her "substandard" acco in our garage while she had gunned for the five-star lifestyle in our kitchen. The kids and I went about the general merrymaking of summer vacation always keeping an eye open for the return of the prodigals.

Then in May, after we returned from a hurried trip to Chennai and Ooty, I opened the front door one afternoon and was scared out of my wits by a black and white furry ball that shot across my way on our porch. Who did I see?

The black n white kitten hiding behind the toy car! They took up temporary residence in our garage. Chakki had brought them back! Here they are hiding behind my scooter:

The kitties were completely wild and would never allow us anywhere near them. I cornered the B&W one once and only got clawed for my pains. I decided to let them alone until they grew accustomed to us if they could. And yes, service at Karthi Cat Spa continued...

They switched acco between our garage and our next-door neighbor's open terrace. Some time in May, the tan and white kitten went missing. But the B&W one made up for it. We named her "Aakrantha Kumari" (the greedy girl kitten) in honor of her insatiable appetite for milk. 

One day we offered Chakki a piece of fried fish. Aakrantha Kumari was on the neighbor's roof. Chakki started to eat the fish, then reconsidered it, picked up the piece of fish and carefully made her way into the neighboring yard while mewing softly with the fish in her mouth. We heard her daughter's frantic replies from our neighbor's roof as she waited to share the delicacy. Such motherly care!

Then two weeks ago, when we came back in the evening after a long day of weekend errands, we found Aakrantha Kumari on our porch. By that time, she had taken to coming in to Karthi from time to time under the strict supervision of her Mom, still not allowing us to touch her, but not running away from us so much either. She shared another bowl of milk with her Mom. Then she played under our car that had been parked in front. Ani came in from time to time to give us blow-by-blow reports of her antics under the car. 

Then as dusk was falling, I went out into our front yard and heard our neighbor call. I walked up to our boundary wall  and he said, "You know that lovely black and white kitten that plays with the kids? It was killed by a stray dog in our yard. The momma cat was so distraught and was crying over the body. I am just back from burying it." DH had come out to hear the last part and I had to tell him the whole thing, by which time the kids came to know about it too. And worse, Chakki herself came to us over the wall.

It was heart-breaking. Because she didn't seem to know what to do. She called for her kitten roaming all over our house. She followed DH distractedly when he went from room to room as though she was sure he was going to the kitten's hiding place. She had never taken her kittens to our second storey, but she went up the stairs anyway and wandered calling in the empty rooms up there. When we opened the front door, she went out. But then came back again through the bedroom window and searched under the window seat where she had given birth to her adorable twins. When we closed the windows, she sat on the sill outside and called.

We all grieved for that bundle of fun. We tried to be philosophical about it, but not very successfully. Two little kittens - alive for barely two or three months? The only consolation was that at least we knew what had happened to the second one, that we had fed her just an hour before she went away and that we had seen her minutes before when she was alive and well but had been spared the horrible end. 

Now all that is left of those kittens' lives are a few photos, a video of both of them playing under our coconut tree and our memories. I will post the video if I can, I downloaded it today to my computer and laughed and cried while watching it. And I had to write about them so that they will be safe somewhere in this cyber-world at least - always playing, tumbling over each other, pretending to be tigers!

Life's fitful fever...

There is nothing like an actual fever to put the greater fever of life in abeyance. Life gets simplified to the basics: slap up 3 meals somehow, swallow medications, collapse into bed. All the rest gets taken care of somehow. 

Hectic was quite an understatement for March. The days just seemed to speed up especially when it was school-closing time. Here I stand in a slight fever-haze at almost the middle of April and I have no idea of what I was doing all the time in March!!!

I will tell you what we did right at the end though. We went to the town of Wind and Jupiter. Okay, THAT was a fancy way of saying Guruyvayoor. Our niece was scheduled to have her first morsel of solid food in front of Unnikkannan and we too went off for a darshan of the Lord.

This time I didn't carry a camera with me. It was a conscious decision to omit that one accessory this time. No camera can capture the joy of the darshan anyway and I don't need pictures to remind me of the same.

But at one point in the trip I did wish I had brought the camera. It was when we went to the Guruvayoor Devaswom's elephant keep at Punnathoor Kotta. Since we had already been there once, I decided to let the boys roam while I sat in front of the old നാലുകെട്ട് (naalukettu) and watched the great pachyderms feed. Okay, I will add pictures from when we went there back in 2011...

See that low wall there? I was sitting cross-legged on top of it and gazing off into the enclosure. It was around 5 pm and all the kariveerans were having their tea (?).. ahem, with a side of palm leaves. It was a joy to just sit and watch them methodically separating the leaves, bashing them to and fro on the ground or against the forelegs to shake off any dust/insects and then eating. One youngster I saw had kept some of his snacks on the top of his head. I was wondering about the new trends in elephant headgear fashion when he pulled it off and used it to scoop some fresh dust on to his back and then left the leaves on his head again. Oh, it was hilarious.

Even more fascinating was the use of the trunk exactly like we use our hands. I saw one of the tuskers rub his eye just like we would. Some of them seemed to be multitasking, doing yogic stretching postures while having their tea. One was rotating his neck so fast that DH and I felt tempted to try emulating him, but soon stopped. Then there were two or three who looked like they were dancing. I looked hard to find dangling ear-pieces, but couldn't. Probably they use blue-tooth devices to listen to FM radio and since all three were dancing differently, I can only surmise that they were listening to different stations...

The elephants all had their names on placards attached to their stations. I was gazing at the place of "Nandan" when I saw him being led to his place after a bath. Till then I had thought the other elephants were black, but I got to know what real black was when I saw this freshly-washed hulk. He was so magnificent, it was all I could do to keep myself from running forward and hugging his trunk. Probably his mahout wanted to keep him that way for a while, because he made Nandan lift his pile of palm leaves and carried it away from the other now tatty-looking elephants and made him stand on a grassy area where there was no dust to play with.

What was that, you want more pics of the Aanakkotta? Okay, here are more from our earlier trip...

Here's one helping himself from a hose. Not all are well-mannered like this, some put the hose straight into their mouths! Hmm!

Here is another view of the front yard and the building. There were fewer elephants the last time we went. This time, sitting in my spot I could count more than twenty elephants in just one direction. Currently there are 59 elephants in the Kotta, most of whom are away on duty for temple festivals and such. After the long queues, blaring speakers and glaringly bright shops near the temple, it was so peaceful to be sitting around these magnificent creatures. I don't think any visit to Guruvayoor would be complete without a visit to His elephant herd!

Cat family update: Many were asking about what happened to the kitty family and I was too busy to write about it. Here is what happened. Within a week of delivery, the momma seemed to feel the Flipkart box was too small for comfort. And I guess she didn't want me to wear down myself by trudging with milk bowls all the way from the kitchen to the bedroom. So she shifted her kitties to a kitchen cabinet that was missing its door at the time (one of the hinges was broken - fixed now) and resisted any attempt of mine to dislodge them.

Not about to be outwitted by a cat, I waited till I heard momma going outside, shut all windows and doors and put the kitties back in the Flipkart box. As I had guessed, momma cat was waiting by the door when I opened it. I showed her the box and her progeny in it expecting her to follow me, but she stalked to the kitchen looking, "Come and put my babies back where they were!" So there was nothing to do but catch her and put all three in the garage. Miffed by the downgrade from 5-star to 1-star accommodation, she stalked off with her kids. We still see her around, but she always turns away her head in disdain, however sweetly we call to her. Hope her li'l ones are safe and she will bring them over some time to visit!

A Dramatic Flipkart Delivery!

Yesterday was a VERY SPECIAL day at Karthi. It unfolded like this:

1:00 p.m: Ani, who didn't have to go to school yesterday, goes into our master bedroom and shouts out, "Amma, there is a cat here!" "Ok!" I say, assuming that it has left as soon as the kiddo hollers.

1:30: I go into the bedroom - note the time - and find Ani sitting on the floor stroking a cat who is lying on her side, relaxing. She barely lifts her head at me and I join the stroking fest. Her tummy looks huge, but from bitter personal experience I hold back from asking how far gone her pregnancy is, fearing a swipe with enraged claws if she isn't pregnant at all! Okay, may be she may just have had a VERY good meal! 

1:45: I tug a reluctant Ani off the floor for a siesta (lack of which can make him very crabby in the evening). He tries to sleep with his pillow at the foot of the bed so that he can watch the cat, but I put his pillow firmly at the head of the cot. 

1:50: We jump right off the bed because the cat makes an odd grunting sound. She comes out from under the bed, looking miffed at the desertion of her personal masseuse and climbs to the window seat and jumps out. Ani stands at the window and calls after her - she wavers a little, then walks off down the driveway.

3:00 pm: I rush into the bedroom because my phone's ringing near Ani who is sleeping. I notice that the cat is back in the room, still lying down under the bed. As I talk on the phone, I wonder vaguely if she needs medical help although she is not showing any distress. It's unnatural for adult semi-wild cats to stay put when they see us in our own territory.

6:30: After our evening prayer, I go into the master bedroom and pull my pile-of-washing-chair up to the bed and start sorting and folding clothes. I hear a rustling noise near the window seat and move the curtain to find that the cat is squatting in a Flipkart box under the window seat. Hmm, interesting... She is grunting and turning round and round. I finally give into my worst suspicion that she is going to have kittens and call up my Mom to confirm. She recommends putting the box and cat outside, but thinking of the distress she must be going through, I put it off...

Well the rest of the story would read like a National Geographic episode, so I will leave that part out. At the end.... Ta ...Da...

Can you see the tawny and the dark little heads there? We have now changed the name of our master bedroom to "delivery suite" and tiptoe around there. Before getting off the bed this morning, I remembered to use the flashlight to see whether I could put down my feet safely. The mom is very sweet-tempered even though she has to bear a lot of prying and flashing lights.

We left a bowl of milk and rice near the box in the morning, kept checking on it and found it licked clean at 10:30. I think the mom felt fit and peckish again by noon, because she left her precious bundles behind in our care for a while:

Today Kunjunni has had the day off from school as his exams are starting tomorrow. I made sure that the kids understand that they are  not to touch the kittens in any way because our scent on them could cause the mom to abandon her kittens. Okay, since that would not be enough to deter our cat-loving Ani, I also told them that he could startle the mom cat into attacking him although she looks too gentle and weary for that! :) The mom is back and the kitties are crawling all over her now.

I wondered if it is our old half-grown Chakki from this post, but looking at the pictures, I think it is a different cat. But somehow the word has got around that Karthi is a safe place for cats. All the people I called said it's great luck to be chosen for such a privilege and shows us that the cat trusts us so much. 

Sooner or later we will be moving them to the garage because claws and soft furnishings do not mix. But they are welcome to bowls of milk and rice at our doorstep as well as all the geckos they can eat from our pantry whenever they want! 

Signing off from the Feline Maternity Hospital aka Karthi!!!