Feline foibles

Small Cat is a big girl now, or she would have us believe. We, on the other hand, know how much of a baby she still is at all of seven months old, as she scampers through the house leaving a trail of small white footprints and chirping in varying tones all along her route, announcing her sudden arrivals and even more precipitate departures. And we are reminded of it as she leaps out from inside her favourite hiding places to ambush us as we walk past, skids over the polished marble floors in pursuit of an imagined bug or falls asleep in mid-hop when we tease her with a piece of string. And when she is hungry, she bites; when she is tired, she droops into her basket; when she wants attention, she lies on her back with her head craning in whichever direction we may be. A cuddle is always wanted, but she needs to be caught first, her astonishingly loud meows telling us that she is lurking behind the bedroom door, sneaking under the sofa or hiding under the flap of her cardboard carton.

But in all this, she still does not really have a name. Some time ago we did decide that officially she would be Cindy Clawford, but we have never called her that. A friend of ours does, asking every time she phones how ‘Cindy’ is. Another friend calls Small Cat ‘Red’, since I once wrote in this blog that my favourite colour was red and even our pet was a shade of that hue. But for some reason, neither Father nor I have a name for her that she can identify, though she does respond to the tone and the fact that we invariably have a treat for her to either eat or play with – a pigeon feather, a biscuit, a handful of wheat grass…

For me, Small Cat is, more often than not, ‘Punkin’. She is like my favourite gourd, the deep orange pumpkin, round and sweet and delicious. She also gets called ‘Nanu’, which in Gujarati means ‘small one’, which suits her well – she is, after all, small and doll-like. Occasionally, she is given the moniker of ‘Fatty’, especially when she is just waking up from a long nap, her face round, her bottom fluffy and stout, her eyes circular and curious. We talk to her in a strange mixture of Tamil and a little English, with the meaning in the voice rather that in the words. But we do not call her by any name.

Which is starting to bother me. The cat I once had and adored had a name that he answered to, running in from the garden or jumping on to the dining table when he was asked to. This little girl is starting to respond when I or my father calls her in Tamil…though that could be more a response to the dish of food that we are setting out or one of her toys that we are holding. But what name she is to be familiarly known by is still a mystery. Suggestions, of course, for a name for Small Cat are always welcome.