BEHIND  THE  LUSH….HE POPS…

                       We meet in darkness amidst the foliage. He would wait for me and I would long to see him. I beckon him. He trudges towards me as if none should ever know. We meet wordlessly and we part noiselessly. He wanted to feel me. I too wanted to be touched by him. But the bond I have at home always made me reluctant. If my man at home would know about this clandestine gathering, he would never forgive me. (Because he was too possessive.) I wanted to run my fingers over him. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to grab him towards me. But I couldn’t. Nobody knows this yet. If you are reading this, make sure you are not going to scatter this secret. The deep secret. This bottomless secret.

                         Amazingly, and exclusive of much exertion, I had always established a rapport with the feline cluster. Let it be a kitten, a black furry King with ferocity, or a white domesticated fluffy Queen, I get into terms with them within no time. I commence my rapport by counting their whiskers and stretching their paws to which any cat would fall flat. And the modus operandi had worked in numerously. I find a cat in the vicinity of wherever I move on to and in any chance if I won’t…they would hunt me out.

                         My College too beckoned me with a kitten behind the hostel kitchen which was one of my main magnetism inside a campus where no other amusement could be edged out. I still bear in mind the white and black cat following me to the 1cp3 class to honor me with its gratitude for the previous night’s supply through the back door of the hostel. The kitten developed to a beautiful young lady who conceived every six months until the College authorities cast them off by sending them to an unknown town. The incident injured me much and the Hostel seemed to be a haunted place without the meow….ing… of that beautiful lady and her little children. But…….. this was a much unusual episode.

                         The Hostel premises had been a quiet one after the mother cat and her family was ostracized. One night at the Mess hall, I was able to pay attention to a squeaking sound of a kitten. I am not sure whether you can call him a kitten since he was bigger than a kitten and pretty slighter than an adult cat. Dumping the waste outside the mess hall in a barrel was the routine of the Hostel system. The cats usually hung around the barrel sniffing it round and round and unable to capture anything from inside. The barrel was in one way a temptation for these cats, but an unapproachable temptation – a forbidden fruit.  Furthermore, the much ‘religious’ pals of our college are too keen not to spread the remnants so as to prevent the cat from having something. They would naturally hurl a toffee-wrap or a paper tissue or an empty cup for they are sure cats don’t need them. Ritualistic Religion hardly becomes practiced in the real sense.

                              Thus on that very day, while disposing the odds and ends in the barrel, I was able to notice the green eyes hiding behind a lush and piercing me with its hunger-drawn looks. However, sheer darkness or a muddled pandemonium can never pull me away from noticing a cat and I was much fervent to institute my association.  I delayed my waste dumping and waited for the students to move out and stealthily I summoned him and to my surprise the eyes came out with its furry body. It came to the fore and I threw the drumstick left on my plate. He grabbed it and went behind the leaves. That was the day of his Feast, I am sure. This incident set the tone and it became a practice for both of us to hide in darkness and to share the remnants. He would wait for me and I would long to see him completely oblivious of our Matron who chases away the poor cat each time she witnesses it. The cat definitely knows his friends and foes. He hides quietly behind the darkness of the leaves listening to the scowling and howling of the bunch of students who arrive and leave the dumping box soon after their dinner. But he knows I would come and I arrive late these days to the mess hall to avoid the crowd so that we can have some private time of our own.

                           Cats are overprotective about their love and they are too self-centered in their relationships. As the Christmas holidays approaches, I am rather excited to go back and hug my man, my cat at home. But this time, for the first time, I am having a parallel despondency in leaving my hostel mate for nearly ten long days. The news of my new companion will undoubtedly make my man at home jealous. So let the companions never know about each other and that exactly is one way of pulling on in life. After all, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women, merely players”, as Shakespeare says. J

A.Krishna Sunder