Well... S loves cats.. and I love S... so, by induction, I love cats! But, thats much later. I have had only a passing interest in cats in my childhood. I did not grow up with pets. On a couple of occasions when me or my siblings felt a strong bonding for a cat or a dog, the standard dialogue we would hear was "As such it is so difficult managing you brats. Why one more?".
It seems my grandpa was raising a dog (this is when my dad himself was too small). But when he died suddenly, the dog went crying uncontrollably for a couple of days and he died too. I guess the entire trauma and not to mention, the financial turmoil for the family was too much to handle.
Anyways, the only time we came close to a cat was when one of our many landladies brought a cat home and that delivered a litter of three kittens. But, soon we moved out of that house and that was the end of it.
Now, fast forward to the present - there were two or three cats roaming around in our apartment community. Initially, we thought these were cats owned some folks within the community. But, then one morning I saw four kittens playing with the mom in the backyard. These kittens seemed only a few weeks old. And at slightest sight of humans, they ran away into the woods. We left some milk/food on the porch and initially the mom and later the kittens started feeding on them. Another month or so passed, and there were three or four more kittens!
Then, we called up Animal Control and they added us to the waiting list for a humane trap - that we can use to catch and turn in these undomesticated cats to proper care. We also learned a whole new set of terms like spay, neuter etc.
One week down and we were still waiting on the call to provide us the traps. And I thought I will put some IIT education and engineering mechanics to use. After a couple of failed prototypes, we caught our first cat, Blacky [This pic is from later].
But, S was too sad to see the panicky cat that she decided to set it free. After Blacky went out, it educated all the other cats/kittens and none ever fell into the trap again. And so, I had to design a new trap.
After a few more attempts, we caught a smaller kitten - one from the latest generation of kittens, again a blacky - Blacky jr. He was so young and cute that after a few hours, he let us pet him. We turned him in and set out for the remaining ones.
We caught a few more afterwards - but the females especially are so aggressive that they keep trying for hours together to escape. Thus, a few of them got back into the wild.
One of them - Spotty, a black and white bicolor cat, had got hurt fighting with other cats. Good for him, we caught him and sent him to med attention. We also caught Tabby, a striped cat and sent her to the safe home. Here is Tabby after hours of trying to escape from the room where it was kept overnight. After waking us and our neighbors up, it retired to the box.
And this is Browny sr. He is the smartest of the lot, always cautious and never gets into any risky situation. My guess is that he will be the last man standing.
4 comments:
Tabby is beautiful. Birds keep flying into our house here. I don't mind the sparrows, but I can't stand the pigeons. If you could devise an instant tandoori device and send it to Pune, you will be much appreciated, thambi.
The catman cometh!
Actually, in Maxim Gorky's Mother, there is a scene just like your grandfather's dog. Where a mine worker will die and his dog will refuse to leave his burial ground - very moving narration.
@GB Adap paavame!
(meaning 'I am moved by your plight')
Keeping in mind your arts and gender studies background, let me give you a quick fix solution: you have seen the laser dot pointer, right? use some 100 of them together and focus it on the pigeon. You will have the pigeon tandoori soon.
For a more optimal number of laser dots, you can take the help of your 'God' - who anyway is reminiscing his IIT coaching days.
Basically, you will have to do some experiments to find out the b(r)oiling point of the pigeon. And then calculate the heat required to raise its body temp to that point (lets call that X).
Now, on experimenting, you will know the heat generated from one laser dot in an instant (lets call that Y).
The minimum # of laser dots required is given by (X by Y)!!
@nmagesh you mean 'The Catcatcher cometh'?!
Mother by Maxim Gorky - I have heard of that episode.. Is that also made into a movie?
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