Bandit Rat

Before I get into the actual material, let me start with a few clarifications (I plan to clarify one point, but I am not sure if more would flow in).

The protagonists in this write up are not humans, meaning they belong to animal kingdom, excluding humans that is. But be assured no animals were harmed by me in the process of recording these events. I mean not physically harmed I cannot guarantee the same about emotional harm though. I cant even vouch the same for human beings... What the hell am I writing. This is not what I wanted to write about.

For very long time... Just to make it clear, I am still clarifying. 

For a very long time, I have been confused about the use of pronouns when referring to animal, birds, reptiles, bacteria, virus, etc. These days I am not even sure about the pronouns to be used when referring to a fellow human. A friend of mine said "I will be meeting them at the Victory Cafe. I hope you can drop me there." When I reached the cafe I saw a girl wave at him. I said "Oh! Looks like only one of them has reached." He looked at me shocked and said "That's them". I felt confused "What do you mean by that's them? There is only one girl." He shushed me "Please! They/Them." I finally understood what he said and asked him to get off my car. I think I am too old to understand pronouns. I am not sure I understood much of it in my younger days either. I mean... Hmmm... I went off track again.

How do I determine the sex of an animal? With dogs and cats, it's not complicated but what about frogs or mice or fish? Even with dogs and cats I don't observe them with enough keenness to determine their sex. For me, a dog is a dog and a cat is a cat. I don't care about their gender. So, when I refer to them I am not sure if I should refer to them as he or she. So I choose a neutral ground and refer to animals at it. For a long time, I thought this was not appropriate as 'it' is used to refer to inanimate objects. But just now, I checked the dictionary and one of the definitions of 'it' is 'a person or animal whose sex is unknown or disregarded'. So I am not wrong in referring to most of the characters in this write up as 'it'. It also means that all these words that I have written are pointless. No, not really. I learnt something today. So, its ok.

... and now, let us get to the reason for this piece of writing to exist.

For many years, I have observed that a cat suddenly appears in my neighbourhood. By 'suddenly appears', I don't mean 'one minute there was nothing and the next moment 'poof' a cat appears' - not the magician type of 'suddenly appears', Instead, I mean the 'hey, I have never seen that black cat before' type of 'suddenly appears'. I need to clarify here that I am not talking about kittens but full blown cats appearing in one's neighbourhood from out of the blue. One might think, that these could be cats that moved from another neighbourhood. Well, that is a possibility and in some cases that is what happens too. But it is not true in all cases. Cats seldom move out of their neighbourhoods. Only dire situations force some of them to move out. So suddenly appearing cats appear due to a different reason.

There is a myth about cats  - Cats have nine lives. This is not a myth; cat do have nine lives. When one of their lives end, they appear at some spot on the planet. There is probably an algorithm that decides the spot at which they reappear but I am not sure if anyone has deciphered it yet. Sometimes, they reappear in the middle of Pacific ocean and other times on top of Mount Everest. The earlier life of the unfortunate cat, ends immediately and the next one starts unless, of course the earlier life was the ninth life, in which case, they don't reappear anywhere on this planet. In the new life, the cat's appearance, size, age and behaviour remains the same as it was prior to the end in its previous life. For example, if a three year old grumpy brown cat dies for the third time then it reappears as a three year old grumpy brown cat in its fourth life. This is the reason for cats suddenly appearing in a neighbourhood. It goes without saying that kittens are living through their first cat life.

I hope I have made this clear. Now let us move on to the actual content.

The village lay besides a highway. Vehicles flowed through the highway in both directions all the time. The highway was like the border between two unfriendly countries. No one crossed from one side to the other. During the early days of the highway, a few brave persons attempted to cross the road from one side to the other. But many of them lost their lives and soon no one attempted to cross the road. Of course, the animals living by the highway did not take this decision and continued to the cross the road. In the process, many of them lost their lives. But this did not deter them.

A brown and white cat, lived in one of the villages by the highway. It associated itself with one of the houses in the village. The people who resided the house loved to feed the cat. The cat allowed them to pet it while it was eating. At other times, it kept away from them. The cat did not spend a lot of time at the house though. It liked the food that was served there and that was the only reason for it to visit the house. The cat had tried a consume the food at a few other houses in the village but it did not like their food's taste. So, its food consumption was limited to that house. Through the remaining part of the day and night the cat rested at different places in the village.

One day, the cat noticed a large tree that stood at some distance from the village. The tree by itself did not interest the cat but the birds that flew in and around it did. It quickly ran towards the lone tree. As it reached closer, it slowed down and finally stopped in crouch close to the tree. From that position it watched the birds intently, they were small. The cat observed them for sometime and selected one of the birds as the ideal candidate for a late evening snack. It started moving stealthily towards the bird. The little bird unaware of its precarious position flew around chirping happily. When the cat reached a few inches from the bird it stopped and almost immediately jumped at the bird. The bird noticed the movement and flew away. The cat paw could only grace the bird's rear feathers.  The cat let out an annoyed 'meow' and chased the bird. In panic, the bird flew low and did not know where it was flying. The cat, focussed on the bird, did not know where it was going either. All of sudden a flash of light blinded the cat. The next moment the cat found itself entwined between the legs of a man.

As a part of my new found exercise routine, I walked around my apartment complex in the evening. Old age and the scare of early death had driven me to thirty minute of swimming in the morning and forty minutes of brisk walk in the evening. I did not enjoy doing either but both the activities had their own perks. So I went about these activities with sincerity. Usually, I go for a walk at around 10 pm. I got delayed that night. I only went down at 11:30 pm. Other than a couple of security guards the pathways were empty. As is usually the case, loud music played into my ears through the Bluetooth headset that cupped my ears. Ozzy Osbourne were berating the politicians for sending the children of the poor to war. I had heard the song a million times and it did not have the impact that it had many years back. Still the song sounded groovy and I shook my head as I walked towards the gate of the complex.

Suddenly, I tripped and nearly fell. Something ran between my legs and my right foot tripped on it. At the same time, the something gave out a painful yell and ran away towards one of the buildings in the complex. I looked in its direction, it was a brown and white cat. I had never seen that cat earlier. As a matter of fact I did not think know that cats resided in our complex. So I wondered where it had come from and how it ended up between my legs. I shook my head, said "Bloody cat" and continued walking.

Two nights later, I saw the brown and white cat conversing with two other cats. I stood and looked at them for sometime. Two days earlier there were no cats in the complex, but now there were three. Once again I wondered where they had come from. It is important for me to mention here that at that point I was not aware of the nine lives theory. I looked at the cats for sometime, the brown and white cat stared at me for sometime before turning away. I continued with my walk. When I came back to the same spot, I was shocked to observe a strange creature in the middle of the path. On closer inspection I realized that the strange creature was an Indian bandicoot rat. It was sniffing at something in the middle of the path. As I came closer, it lost interest in the sniffing. It turned around and started running in my direction. No, that's not true. It did not run, it hopped. Not a normal hop but a trippy hop; a hippity hop to be precise.

It came hopping along with a tune in its lip. I could not identify the tune; it was probably the latest hit from the 106.3 Bandicoot FM. When it was a few steps away from me, it stopped. It looked at my shoe decked left foot and then up at me. It said "Yikes!", turned around and ran away. It did not exactly run away, but ambled away for it was too heavy to run. Even in its desperate run from danger, there was a trippiness. It seemed like nothing could take away its sense of joy. For the first time in my life, I thought that bandicoots should be renamed bandicutes. It possessed none of the furtive look that most bandicoots have. This one was confident that it was doing nothing wrong. I felt a liking towards the bandicoot grow in me. Soon it disappeared under a car.

As I continued my walk, I found the brown and white cat walking besides me. It looked at me and asked "Did you see its size?" I nodded. It continued "That's the largest rat ever". I corrected the cat "It's not a rat, it's a bandicoot." The cat became confused "Bandi-what? Nope! That's a rat. Did you not see its snout? Its a rat. That's for sure." I did not continue the argument. For many years, I too thought that bandicoots were big rats. Maybe biology would have been simpler, if bandicoots were called big rats. But then that makes no difference to me. I am not interested in biology. The cat continued "We were living peacefully before huge creature appeared. I have no idea where it came from. Do you know?" I shook my head and said "I am not even sure where you came from". The cat looked at me shocked and said "What do you mean? I was always here. This is my home." I disagreed "No. One night you suddenly appeared between my feet." The cat appeared even more shocked "You mean you gave birth to me! You are my mama?" It was my turn to be shocked "No! That's not what I mean. I mean... Oh! Never mind! Are you scared of that big rat?" "Aren't you? I mean look at its size. It can eat me for dinner. ... or lunch." I disagreed "Rat don't eat cats. Cats eat rat." It shook its head and said "Uh, uh! Not me. I prefer birds." I remembered I had seen the cat the running with a bird fluttering in its mouth the previous morning. I asked "Was that bird delicious?" Once again, it sounded confused "Which bird?" "The one you had yesterday morning." The cat started moving away from me "Oh birds are always delicious! Much better than rice and potato. Certainly better than rats." I watched the cat go away towards the car park.

The next night, I saw the bandicoot plopping along from one building to the next. Suddenly it stopped, looked to its left and then started running towards another building. As I watched it run, I felt a presence near me. The brown and white cat sat besides me, looking at the bandicoot. It said "Why can't that disgusting creature just go away? It has taken away half of our space." I said "I think you are over reacting. It will not harm you. It seems cute." The cat did not agree "Cute? Baaah! Yesterday, it attacked the white and black cat. It nearly bit the cat's head off. This cannot go on. Something has to be done." The cat walked away from me shaking its head.

Next morning, as I was walking at another part of the complex. I found something lying on the middle of the path. It was the bandicoot lying on its side. As I reached closer, I realized it was dead. I looked around for the cats but found none. I did not see any marks or wounds on it. I considered checking it for life but found the thought disgusting. I said a sad good bye to the trippy bandicoot and walked away.

Since that morning, I have the seen the brown and white cat a number of times but it has never conversed with me again. I tried approaching it many times but every time I approached, it walked away from me. I wonder if it was responsible for the bandicoot's end. I will never know.