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  • Writer's pictureChithra Warrier

A Surprise at Night

My mother and I have been admonished by many people owing to the fact that we sleep late. Very late. Night time is our perfect time to watch movies or serials together.


This particular incident happened late one night during one of our weekly visits to Thrissur. We had forgot to bring our cable to watch our serial on the TV so I had downloaded it on my phone. And there we were sitting and watching in a somewhat uncomfortable position. At around one a.m we saw something walk past the room. We jumped. It was a cat! Inside the house! Brain switch to panic mode right then and there. My mother and I slowly followed the cat to the back verandah. It ran up the stairs and watched us warily from the top. How in the world did a cat get inside?


"Open the front door," my mom said. I did so. Then we examined the windows and found that one of the mosquito nets had moved allowing to cat to come inside. We adjusted that and resumed watching the serial while waiting for the cat to move out (hopefully). No chance. A half hour later we went back again but there was no sign of the cat upstairs. My mother moved to the other side of the verandah where there is a long table on which we store old newspapers and magazines. There my mother gasped. I went and stood beside her. And there was the reason for her shock. There was the cat under the table. Correction : Mama cat. Nearby there were three tiny babies wriggling around on a plastic sack!


Now that was a shock. Not knowing what else to do I took a picture of the babies. They were barely a week old and tiny. The mama cat was white with grey and ginger markings. One kitten was the same pattern. One was white and ginger and one was white and grey. The cat was looking up at us probably terrified of these huge beings that might harm them. Poor mama. We left them there as we couldn't do anything that night.


In the morning I saw my dad admiring the babies. He wanted to leave them there for another week maybe till they were old enough. My mother talked to our neighbours' driver. The mama cat used to get food from the house. The house was being renovated and she probably had to find somewhere safe for her babies which is why she came here. The driver promised to take the babies back as soon as possible. To say the truth, I was disappointed. I had been rather proud that the cat had chosen our house for the babies. Also I wanted to hold them, and stroke the soft fur.


Later we got a call saying that they had moved the family. Once we were back home we checked that everything was in order and adjusted the nets once again. In the evening the mama cat was back! She had moved the net again. We were worried that she didn't know that her babies had been moved. It had been meowing outside all day.


At night as we came home we went to the verandah again. A few newspapers had been knocked down and there she was. This time they were on the table. The mama cat lying next to her three tiny kittens. I was secretly happy. The family seemed comfortable among the papers so we left them there. Now, as I'm writing this it's late at night. The cats are probably asleep back there.



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