Spicy Kittens

    Today started out with me getting screamed at by the elders of the family for trying to be a good person – atleast in my opinion. I had started out to go comb my hair on the terrace as usual. As I pushed open the grilled door to the terrace and took a step in my habitual direction, I saw the feral feline that roamed our street climb the stairs to the water tank. She wasn’t the loud type around me in the short times I have visited her with food, but now she was hissing.

“Cats,” I thought out loud and then stopped abruptly. I realized she was hissing because of her little ones I saw on the previous day. Startled, it occurred to me that the little chillies were close by. I saw a dark patch scramble into the house and into Appa’s bedroom. I threw caution into the wind, jumped inside and closed the door while explaining in perfect English to the mother Cat, “I’ll bring him (or her) back to you.” She just glared.

The little carbon copy was hiding behind the only cardboard box in the room. I called my brother and went to find a sheet to hold him while releasing it ‘back to the wild’. Unfortunately Amma answered the plea in her thunderous voice.

“If you don’t get that cat out of here within five minutes, I cannot assure you of its life or yours, when your father comes home.” Yeah, she was one of those typical Indian mothers. Not that I was complaining. She’s awesome. Her temper though, was entirely another subject.

The kitten was ferocious and looked as black as coal. I decided to call him/her that. We opened the door after a few minutes of non-negotiable scrambling around the room and it jumped the so called grill barricade and left (fled for its life) without even a good bye ‘meow’. The mother, who was ever so calmly sitting on the landing wall, jumped an inch – and disappeared on to the other side of the wall. 

Sighing, I turned to close the door when I found two blue glassy spots unblinkingly staring at me from the corner of the ground behind the disposed furniture pieces on the roof. I realized Coal had a sibling – only this one had all of its tiny hair standing perpendicularly. It looked like he/she was telling me, Don’t you dare come near me Human, I won’t hesitate to kill, and it was the cutest version of anger I’d ever seen. Before they decided to hate me for time unimaginable, I decided to let them enjoy peace. Hearing my name being called from inside the house, I smiled. Atleast the spicy kittens are together. When their mother gets them – she’ll get them together.