Little Ms "Purr "fect

She is all of thirteen and full of questions!!  She longs for independence but yet is home sick when she goes out on a school excursion for less than a week. She fights with me, she is embarrassed of me yet when she is feeling low it is me who she calls... Yes folks  this is Miss " Purr" fect my cat loving teenage daughter! This post is at her request dedicated to the love of her life- CATS!

Our home has always been a feline paradise.. we have cats walking in and out of various parts .. most of whom do not really come in the category of " Pets". Ever since my little one was really little she was fascinated by these creatures. I remember her as a toddler looking curiously at a cat - eye ball to eye ball as she crawled on the floor one day. The cat made the first move tapping the baby gently on her head with his paw! There have been occasions when I have found my little baby curled up with the current feline resident of the house.. fast asleep. " Get rid of the cats. They can cause diphtheria" someone told me. But it is easier said than done.

Given the huge abundence of these creatures in our home, it was only natural that Ms. "Purr" fect should become a cat lover. She has rescured number of cats from dustbins. We had "Snowy "who was nearly run over by a motorbike until our heroine let go of my hand running onto almost the middle of the road to pick up the cat. Snowy was more of a kitten than a cat. She was ill when she came to us. So we put her in a basket and took her to a snooty veterinary clinic next door. There was a form that we had to fill in out there. A snootier receptionist asked us " breed" ? My enterprising husband filled in "Alwarpet". Amidst all those persian beauties sat our scraggly Snowy waiting for shots.

Snowy was with us for a while until she disappeared. Then we had three kittens whose mother had apparently abandoned them in our loft - Fluff, Cotton and Patch! It is probably the most difficult thing on earth to look after kittens who have just about opened their eyes. We found that they could not lick and therefore placing a saucer of milk was useless.  Finally, we realized that the best way to feed them was through an ink filler. Point was that an inkfiller can only take in that much of milk .So it came to us  having to  feed them every alternate hour- yes even through the night! After three days of caring for them like this I found myself coming down with a severe allergy! I was unable to breathe, my skin was itching and I was constantly sneezing! A visit to the doctor confirmed what I did not even suspect - that I was severely allergic to cats.. So with a heavy heart we left them at the Blue Cross animal shelter.

Life went on for a while without feline interventions until a couple of days ago when Ms. " Purr" fect came home from school cradling a kitten in her arms. She went straight into the garage and hid the kitten in a shoe box among the million cartons there! Then began the rain and thunder in the evening along with the pre Diwali crackers! I found her ( the daughter)  crying bitterly... after some coaxing and cajoling she told me about the kitten " Poor thing it must be feeling so scared" she said sobbing. So we went out into the garage under an umbrella  armed with a torch. We could hear mewling but could not see the little thing anywhere..  After a quarter of an hour of  search I convinced junior that we should continue the search in the daylight. Daylight was something that we did not have the next day as the rain worsened. The mewling continued but we could not track the kitten...

Last  night as we were getting ready for bed.. junior had another one of her crying sessions. But of no avail.. we could not find the little fellow. ' Can I go on face book? " she asked me. " Yes. But be sure to turn off the computer by 10PM" I warned her. I was a little nervous. My husband was travelling and we were both alone at home. Our home is a huge rambling old house with a lot of trees in it! ( I had once ordered for Pizza and the Domino's guy had asked for directions. When I told him the address he asked me " Is it near that bhoot bangla?'. I guess I made him extremely nervous when I said that it WAS the " bhoot bangla" )

I suddenly woke up at 11PM and found the computer on and Ms " Purr" fect missing. I looked around in all the rooms but she wasn't anywhere around. Then I noticed the front door was open and someone prowling around in the compound with a torch- yes you guessed right- Ms. " Purr" fect was calling " kitty kitty" and finally pouncing upon it , lifting it from a bush below!

Releif, anger and worry all welled up together in my mind as she walked in triumphantly holding the kitten in her hand!

Right through the night she played mother to the kitten holding in her arms and coaxing it to drink milk.. I woke up in the morning to find one of my microwave containers ruined ( the base was burnt out). And when I went to take the clothes out to do the laundry I saw a pair of grey eyes looking at me curiously

" Shhh! dont scare him. I put him to sleep there inside the bathroom"  said the foster mum..!

Ms " Purr" fect is at the moment with " Patches" the new addition to the family getting him to drink milk out of  syringe. She had wanted to buy a feeding bottle but we told her that a syringe would be better. I have been warned by the husband to stay away from the new addition to the family  " We can do without another one of those allergy attacks" was the first thing he said when he saw the little fellow this morning!!!

My father seems very proud about what his grand daughter did last night. Apparently he has been bragging about her 'heroism"  to anyone who would care to listen!

She says that she must have been an Egyptian priestess in one her previous births. Cats were supposedly holy creatures in ancient Egypt ( this is news to me!). " They have followed me in every birth and I will care for them"  she says ... I wonder from where she has got this streak for the dramatic :-)?

( Happy Diwali to all my blogging friends!"