Its Me And My Life....: Z FOR ZINI – The Cat Who Left a Paw Print on My Heart

Monday, April 30, 2018

Z FOR ZINI – The Cat Who Left a Paw Print on My Heart

Z FOR ZINI – The Cat Who Left a Paw Print on My Heart

ZINI was the name I had given her. No, no, I‘m not at all a cat lover. In fact not even a pet lover. I’m more precisely a Zoo-phobic if not just Ailurophobic or Cynophobic. I fear animals for one particular reason. Neither I can’t touch them nor can I handle their touch. I get an extra sensation, a kind of Goosebumps even with the thought of the “TOUCH”.

It was way back in my mid nineties. Almost two decades ago. I was in 8^th Standard then. My schooling had been from a residential school. So I used to stay in hostel. One lazy afternoon, I heard something which felt like someone crying in pain. I came out of my room and crossed the narrow corridor and proceeded to the open veranda from where the sound was coming. On my reaching, I found a little kitten was trapped at one corner of the walls that enclosed the veranda from three sides between a tree branch (from outer side) and some stuffs kept in sack by the hostel caretaker. I felt bad and looked for someone around who can help it get out of it. However, I could find no one around. I couldn’t think of rescuing it even though felt pity for the poor creature.

Merciless you can say me but I turned back to return to my room. However after few steps I couldn’t make another move and got back to the veranda again. I looked for some long sticks or something like that by which I can help it out but in vain. It was incessantly crying and the sound was quite piercing. Helpless, finally I rushed the water pump room in one of the corner of veranda and I got the ladder that was kept in it and positioned it against wall where the kitten was trapped. I climbed it and tried to move the sack. But kitten was trapped with the branch of the tree with one of its leg getting entangled with it. It was easy to get out of it but the poor creature didn’t know the trick. Finally I had to overlook all my sensations and caught hold of it and got it out of the branch smoothly. Climbed down and kept it on the veranda. Few moments, it didn’t move and just said “meon meon...” I looked at its jelly like two eyes which were filled with tears I guess. It seemed terrified, pained and hungry. I brought a bowl full of amul powder wala milk which it slurped slowly though.

Looking at my “Mission Rescue Cat “few of my roommates got up and pampered it well. I didn’t know how I did it. I gave her the name ZINI. It seemed it was parted from its mother. How it got up to the wall, is still a mystery to me. After that, it roamed around being pampered and fed by the girls in the hostel. It became a familiar member of the hostel as it grew up.

However, whenever I used to be in the hostel it would come to the door of our room and say “meon, meon....” such an attention seeking creature it was. I must say, I did never hold it again in my hand & never embrace it. But it seemed we had established a bond. And the best thing was after every vacation, whenever I used to return, within moments I would find her at my doorstep. In the hostel it was NICK Named Tinu’s Ladli. We had to change room also every year as rule by the hostel administration but ZINI was smart enough to find out my room.

However when I was in mid of 11^th standard, I noticed ZINI was nowhere around. I searched for it so did other girls. But it was nowhere. We looked for it outside the hostel too but couldn’t find it. I missed it like anything and had tears in my eyes. I didn’t know if I would ever find myself falling in love with a cat or an animal for that matter. But ZINI wasn’t just a cat I guess. It had already left a paw print in my heart.

Unfortunately that time unlike these days we had no resources to keep pictures. But ZINI – with its jelly like eyes, her face is as fresh as ever in my mental screen...

I could never love any other cat after that the way I loved ZINI though I found a shadow it in other cats.....