The little ones – I

This is another of those long-overdue blogs – for all those who have been waiting for me to write a post on my cats, here it is, finally.

Moody gave birth to three lovely kittens on 15 April 2006 – not at home, though, much to our worry. She came home for her meals, spent some time with us everyday, and then would run off to where her babies were – till a week later, when, hearing the familiar thump that was Moody jumping in through a window that was always kept open for her, we turned to see her with what looked like a tiny furball in her mouth. She had finally brought the babies home.

We had a huge cardboard box lined with newspapers and an old T-shirt of mine ready, and Moody settled into her new home within a home contentedly with the little ones, who we loved immediately. One looked exactly like her, one was grey and white, and the other, multicoloured (and therefore obviously female). They were smaller than the palm of my hand, and their eyes were still shut tight. As that was 23 April, Shakespeare’s birthday, we decided to call one of them, the littlest one, the black and white baby, Ariel.

Ariel, the spitting image of his mother, is a bundle of contradictions – at once gentle and stubborn; the sweetest-natured and the most timid, yet the most intrepid; the most cautious yet the most curious, a born explorer; the most intelligent of the three, yet the most impetuous. At the age of one month, Ariel was the first to learn how to climb out of his cardboard box into the big wide world outside – there was nothing so high that Ariel couldn’t climb it, no place so hidden that he couldn’t find on one of his adventuring forays. K always said he had some mountain goat blood on him – a feeling that was reinforced after he ate our money plant. From the time that Ariel was two months old, he could often be seen at the top of our ceiling high curtains, slowly making his way around the length of the room, while his siblings watched him admiringly from below.

As a little baby, Ariel was the weakest and smallest of the lot, which is probably why Moody loved him the most. He was the one she would nuzzle first, and she’d make sure he always lay closest to her so she could give him the first lick, and sleep with her arm around him. He hardly ever mewed, and was content to cuddle up at my back on the occasions that we took them out of their box and let them play on the bed. A month or so later, though, and all had changed – he became a bright, inquisitive, little thing, whiskers quivering with excitement and eyes bright with delight at the prospect of getting into some more mischief. He never did learn to not repeat the same mistakes ten times – and each time would look so heartbroken and terrified while being scolded that I didn’t have the heart to do so. And he was just as fussy about food as his mother – he was the first to tire of his Lactogen (which was their regular diet once Moody began weaning them till they were around three and a half months old); and he was the first to refuse Mother Diary milk, preferring, like his mother, DMS milk instead. And once they began going outside, we realised that little Ariel was quite the lone ranger at heart – he slowly began exploring the world outside, preferring to stay out by himself for long hours at a time, returning home every now and then with scratches on his nose, or eye infections that we tended to.

Though he is fiercely independent, he loves being cuddled – of the three, he’s the only one who would come running up, and hold out his arms, asking to be picked up. Quiet and thoughtful, he’s also the most sensitive, quick to pick up on moods and emotions. My little prince, as I call him, is also extremely fastidious – he hates getting his spotless fur dirty, or being in messy surroundings. That fastidiousness doesn’t hold when it comes to food, though – Ariel still eats everything around him, including bean bag balls (once he and his big brother had made a sizeable hole in one of our bean bags that never could be sat on again afterwards) and cotton wool. Like a little boy, he often threw tantrums, doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to, all the while keeping an eye on me to see if I was watching, and playing with a stuffed ladybird that was his special toy. While he loved K just as much, he was also scared of him, and was nothing but beautifully behaved when he was around – and very delighted on the occasions that K picked him up for a cuddle.

Ariel’s in Kolkata now, along with his siblings (and the story of how we all got there will form the subject matter of another blog), and my mom tells me he’s still quite the adventurer, staying out by himself most of the day, coming in only for his meals and to sleep. He was the first to get friendly with the other cats, and the first to accustom himself to his new surroundings. While his nature is as sweet and gentle as ever, my mom says he’s not all that demonstrative of his affection, something that secretly rather pleased me – that means his displays of love were for me only, that he still loves me the most.