The Cat Named...

No, you're not going to find the name in here. It's still in the title. The cat really was called ... That's what her name was.

My Granny had all these come-and-go pets, including this cat and some pigeons.

My mother always said the cat was older than me, but I never could believe it. She was white with black patches and a sort of pitiable face.

She had actually learnt to eat veggies because Granny being a vegetarian would only give her daal-bhaat. That cat had the weirdest dietary preferences. She would eat ordinary crackers, sweets, and sometimes even toffees.

She always gave birth to her kittens in Granny's house, and Granny obligingly played the midwife. She cleared out biscuit cartons and put newspapers in them. When the kittens were old enough, my cousin and I spent all day running after and cuddling them. We made swings from towels and forts with pillows to play with them.

They say you cannot teach a cat to do tricks. But I taught this one to sit down if I stroked its back with a stick. I realized later that this wasn't a very wise thing to do, because, now, whenever someone wanted to scare her away, she would sit down and start meowing at the sight of the stick.

I've never owned any pets. This nameless cat was the closest thing I had to a pet. She died of old age in 2009.