Of Cats, Dogs & a Muse gone wild

no, it isn’t the old

dog eat dog

mad world, they say

it’s now more a cat and dog world,

with all its godly allusions,

and to use the old cliché

it isn’t rocket science

to know cats and dogs aren’t friends

sure, as to any rule of Nature

there could be exception(s)

to the rule.

in doubt

throw a cat

on to the face of a dog

any cat on to any dog

but who is who, what 
is what, and 
which is which

ought to be clear-

figuratively

there are cats among dogs

and dogs among cats,

and they could turn out be friends,

and we could talk of miracles.

my little knowledge

comes from 

'my experiments with truth’

in my childhood-

catching a cat by the tail

rolling newspaper balls for cats

to play included

and of dogs –I never

went that near except throwing

a cat on to the dog

one fine morning,

and then being chased

by a dog round  
the old banyan tree

near our home

one not-so-fine evening

until a man of some god

who sat under the tree

raised me in his arms

Everything about this and all the characters are real: While the story is real, I have no idea as to what came upon the muse to bring it on now.

• the world – it is the same world that you are in. But the instances took place in my home-town in Kerala, near my home, around 32-33 years ago.

• Me -- a girl of 10/11 years with all the wild and domesticated shades of cat(s)/kitten(s) and dog(s) in me.

• the real cat- no name, but a wild one, who used to sit on our wall most of the days…and who duly gave birth to many kittens, a few of which were used as specimens for our experiments – Unlike the children of today, we were not very educated on ‘cruelty to animals’ clause, except elders saying: not to harm them and to be careful while playing with them;  but none of that went into our heads, especially when the urge to experiment took over. These days I see children talking of ‘cruelty to animals’ and human rights at par – humanity isn’t going that bad... 

• the dogs: two, who were my neighbours’ pets - Mahiyan and Chippu; the one on to whom we threw the cats and the one who chased me.

• the Banyan tree with an inbuilt small temple - the locale and my room with the view of huge banyan tree, the temple, the near-by temple-pond and the far away stream, where people took their bath–  it’s more or less a similar setting as described by Ravindranath Tagore in his childhood memoirs…most things about the locality, the landscape and the people there have changed now -  but more on that later, in some other writing.

• man of some god – the temple priest, who himself is one character of sorts who could give me substance for writing a few stories, if I happen to. In the least he would appear in guest roles in some of them. His real name is not known to me. ‘21 Appu’ was his nick-name- the story behind being that he had the blessings and revelations of 21 deities  - no idea as to who they are, except one being the deity of that temple. He never revealed to us his revelations, saying that was against his accord with the deities.

• To talk of miracles – we could talk of some miracles as a few kittens and Mahiyan became friends. Chippu was wild, so was the mother cat and some kittens, and we used to have some exciting time seeing their fight.

• Lastly, An apology to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi for using the name of his book in the  context of finding the trivial truth behind natural instincts of cats and dogs.

• Needless to say, this could have been written in a much better form as a memoir. But sadly I don't seem to have time now, for any creative pursuit. So before I lose such memories to time and memory loss, rather jot it down, so that's what it is.

• More such stories to come? - Possible, but not sure when.

Photo courtesy: as per original copyright at:
http://www.realbollywood.com/2010/08/cats-dogs-2-review.html