Current Avatar & Tribute to the rest!

[ A home where everyone loves and cares pets is something I have been blessed with. Some incidents I have been hearing for years now of the pets who belonged to our family way before I was born inspired me put down an whole tributed article about them. Every time when the story is told I picturize each of their pranks and deeds.

There was a cat that was brought from the legend of Kannada saahitya " Gopalakrisha Adiga's" house . Do you know what the cat was named as ? - Venkataramana , not a name given in our household, it was the legend himself who had this passion for cats and named it so.

There was a Boxer by name "Ali" . He was one of the best dog at home to this day as per what has been heard of his deeds. Can you imagine a dog bringing an egg from the shop holding in its mouth without causing a single crack. Wow I would want to watch him do that again. He would play with my cousin who was a kid then - the games he played - hide and seek , big ball throw catch and what not. She did not feel the void of being a single child at all . How could one when Ali was around? He would get the milk from the shop when he was sent with a bag and cash. Such a brainy dog - he never returned until the change rendered back was right. He liked the sound of tearing a cloth and by now you can guess what the fate of the saree put up for drying on a wire would have been. Come the season of Mangoes he was happy than the rest. Loved the taste I guess or maybe the way he could gulp it. His name is taken at home even to this day - this shows how much he was loved by all and of course who can forget such an angel.

There were a few more pets that gets a mention once a while : Scissors/Shani - A Dog, a cat that came home even after it was left about a 30 miles away - route perfect it was! More of their stories have been revolving around.

I share my experiences with the ones that have been dear to me and the rest at home. ]

From the farthest memory backup I tried recalling the first pet I have played with. If only I am correct, it should be the cat named Saraswati. I can vaguely from my blurred vision retrieve the coloured patches on its body - Black and White. After her we raised another by name Gouri. It laid kittens and one of them was our favorite Ganesha (of the Golden brown genre). He grew into a super active cat besides being with our lasa epso doggie - Rani. Rani and Ganesha gelled very well and were best of buddies. They slept together at times and that keeps me amused even today, cat with a dog :/ how ?

Gouri and Ganesha

Once when Rani was still a pup of about 9-10 months, it somehow messed with a Monster Dog (Sony), a pet owned by a doctor living next door. Glad she survived the fight with a half torn ear. So ends the story of how Rani had fallen deaf of an ear.She needed a pat on her back when her food was ready or if we needed her attention elsewhere.

Meanwhile Ganesha was happily merrying out with all possible friends, climbing trees, chasing squirrels, playing with the tiny rats. Ganesha was last spotted during the house warming ceremony of our new house. Probably he got scared of the numerous guests pouring in for the celebrations or rather he just did not want to shift his base from his current residence and kindly disappeared.

Rani moved with another uncle since they are pet lovers too and she liked their pampering.

Then came a day when we had to move into our new home in a different locality. No pets kept us gloomy for sometime until we found Kajju(Kajal) . She was a darling angel. Name is a metaphor to describe her black soft coat. Her gurr purr still runs in the house. Kajal is a heroine you know - she acted in a short kannada horror telefilm. Yes cat and its feminity, its cunning look and scary eyes are why probably one show them on a horror scene. She gave birth to many kittys. We did not want any more female cats in the family :0 , so we allowed Beechanna the only son of Kajal to stay back. Besides we took extra precaution of getting Kajju operated at a veternary hospital in order to avoid more kittens from her side.

Beechanna was a majestic cat and his looks were very much masculine. In all cultures, the basic characteristics of manliness include physical prowess, (strength, fitness, and a lack of laziness) courage, and honourable behaviour. He carried them all with him. He also has a witty side , one morning on the pretext of banging the door he locked us all inside the house, only to later get the door unlocked by our milkman. As acting comes in blood they say, Beechanna also got into acting[trait carried forward from his mom Kajju]. ha ha:) He acted in one of the short stories that was brodcasted in Doordarshan about a decade ago. They say that a male cat generally don't stay at the owners place for long. They usually tend to leave at their adolescence. Same was the theory with him. But surprisingly he came back after a month and continued with all the duties he usually performed with no miss. He was a well behaved quiet, timid cat padding to and fro, rubbing its head on objects, licking its tongue, and curling up to sleep after allowing the soot to fall upon it. This routine lasted a few weeks and gone was he forever leaving the memories behind. After a while Kajju came home one day with a large cut on her stomach area . Her aim of catching a mangoose one day left her with some real big cuts - some from the bites of mangoose and some probably when she tried reaching back home safe. Inspite of medication she failed to recover from the cuts. And we were left with no pets again - minds filled with melancholy and despondency .

Diana - one day visitor! After the black beauty we thought of bringing up the white queen and named her rightly "The Princess Diana". One night and that is it, she was unbearble, her screams were so bad that she was united with her mom the very next day.

Next entry was Abby - A black and white dog. Breed am not quite aware of, definitely not a stray neither a groomed one. We had him around for some days and could not handle his shouting,non-friendliness attitude. After trying every possible method known, he laid still crooked and stubborn. That was when we decided of sending him to the home of pets - veternary hospital. Same era a cat named "Munna" trickled into our house. He was simple quiet guest for a month. Did not turn up after his afternoon meal one day. There was yet another dog brown in color and he was there for a day or two. I dont recall if we had ever named him, but he was strong yet not sufficiently happy with us. So had to let him go.

During this period we had our rowdy Gunda who happily nodded to all the orders from its Master - Sis. This cat was a treat to watch do all the fun acts. The cunning wait to catch the mangoose from the neighboring empty plot, its rolls on the sand when the sun is pretty hot, the way he disturbed sis while she was writing to complete her homework. He was so jealous when she would spend more time with her books than with him - as a result he started sitting comfortably on the book that lay in front of her blocking the view. What do you call him - a genious? If I start iterating incidents of the like this blog probably can run pages.

At around same time Dad made some efforts in setting up an aquarium. We had a dozen of fishes swimming to glory - golden fish, blue fish, striped ones , tiger fish and more. Since we were not aware of certain fish facts , we started loosing them one by one ending up with only 2 tiger fishes which lived longer than the rest.However there was this water Turtle "AameRaaya" who joined them in the course of time. He was a handicapped turtle yet swam hard in the little aquarium. After he lost his buddies - the 2 tiger fishes, we tried to releive him from the boredom of loneliness and set him free in a lake at my uncle's place in Koorg.

One day as we returned home from school, we saw a parrot struggling with pain and soon we administered first aid and tried patching it up with some medication. It could not fly as a part of its wing was ripped off. We could not set him off into the free cruel world unless he could safeguard himself. So we bought a cage to keep him away from our cunning Gunda. Luckily Gunda did not mind the parrot being a part of our home.Sis started fly training activities everyday which helped the parrot gain confidence over his wings. After a weeks practice he once went flying, till the tree at the end of the road, came back to only bid a sweet thank you to Sis. He flew away after that, happily chirping a thank you note. We just hope he reached his family secured.

While Gunda was still around, a pup (3 months old) who was a cross breed between a long coat and a pom, joined the family. Naming him was not a deal as he did not respond to any other creepy names like Jhony, Tomy, Scooby. He was named Whisky at his birth place ,thus was used to being called by that name only. Gunda was obviously jealous as his love was getting shared with another pet. He did not like Whisky at all.

There is a saying which goes like this "God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled". No one's an exception in these rules of life and death. Gunda had to face the death which he did not deserve so soon. We miss you Gunda.

After Gunda we did not have cats for a while. Fruity the stray cat somehow made its appearance in the vicinity of our house and a little pampering got him settled down.The memories of him are only of his laziness. No cat can be so lazy,but Fruity could sleep the entire 24 hours available in a day. Not exagerrating here, it was a fact. Even though you forcefully wake him up, the very next second he was back into sleep. Nasheeli in totality.He disappeard all of a sudden leaving no trace behind.Maybe he is still happily

sleeping somewhere.

Whisky was a small pup when he became a part of our family and wanted a companion , so he tried to make friends with Gunda only to be disappointed to see all his efforts going in vain. Whisky had his own ways of expressing love - lick, bark, wag his tail, jump, get onto one's face and bite his/her ear. He did not like the idea of getting tied to one place. Gosh! I remember his reactions on the first day when he was tied with a purple/blue leash. He kept barking, all through the day. When irritated aunt showed him a stick - trying to tame him but he did not give in , only his aggression grew more. Eventually he got used to this painful routine of being tied to one place. We did not want this to happen but since his actions were completely vulnerable, it was a risk for us to have him run around the house and only option was to have him chained. He got all the pampering required - he got his 2 piece chocolate[Munch] every single day. He needed vegetables from the sambar or palya as sides for his curd and milk rice. He enjoyed ice creams - vanilla flavor especially. He rejoiced the maize[the one thats roasted] till the last seed.He performed small acts of sit , sleep , roll and double roll , ending with a namaste and a shake hand.


I cant forget his agressive face, especially when I provoked him to anger. He has ended all of us in the clinic for an anti-tetanus shot. He was active, rather I can say hyper active and his barking was something unusual. One funny thing about Whisky is that he was scared climbing up the stairs, if he did them it would be in the upside down way. He remembered Gunda even after death of Gunda - When we say "Gunda is here" - he would immediately look at the window where Gunda used to come and go. He was fond of his Bath towel so much that inspite of its wear and tear he would suck that, as if he is drinking milk from his mom. He looked so innocent when on this act.


Unfortunately we lost Whisky all of a sudden - in no time to reciprocate to his agony. He died of sudden heart arrest last year.Though he isn't around anymore,there is no day in the past year when we have not taken his name.


With the pain still around, a week after Whisky's demise, while Sis was walking back home, there was this fat female cat sitting in the corner of the road, looking worried. She did come to Sis as soon as she was signalled for. Sis brought her home and gave her some biscuits and milk. That became a routine for "Kenchi" and soon she was home for all her meals. She was pregnant and soon laid 4 cute kittens whom we named - Alpha, beta, Gamma and Delta(Avatar).




We had the four of them run over the house , play to the tunes of new movie songs, fight continuously for hours and of course sleep cutely on the bean bag. Then when their play got to the level of intolerence , we decided to have them reach good owners. So did Alpha , Beta and Gamma move out leaving behind the curiuos of all - Delta the Current Avatar back home. He is the most adventurous among the 4 kittens. After about 3 months Kenchi was again ready for the next batch of kittens and she started keeping herself away from Avatar. He is named Avatar because of his looks, yes he resembles the character in the movie Avatar.


He is one more Cat who is quite active and sharp. His pranks and actions are incredible. He takes the risk of waking my Sis in the morning and ensures that she is awake on time. :0 His body clock is so right that he is ready at 8:45 am sharp, for his share of corn flakes from my breakfast bowl. He loves climbing trees, sitting on the car showing his majestic poise. He has quite a number of friends around but the enemy count probably outshines the former.He knows how to open the main door - points us to the latch when we ask him about it, he knows where his sea food is kept, he waits for our return in the evenings after the days work. His adventures has led him to pain many a time, he had his back severely broken once, when he came back home after a week's trip. He also suffered a month of stomach ailment because of which he lost his appetite.One day he came home with a red, completely swollen eye - a result of fight with one of his enemy. Gods given a gift to these animals that their ailment heal on their own, with time.


Avatar is currently the only pet we have at home and every one adore him so much.
(Note : More Photos will soon follow)



-Ashwini