In warm weather, our cat Rumi spends the nights outside the house, enjoying her freedom in the community garden, cat walking along thin parapet walls , painting the night red with lizard blood!
She returns home in the wee hours of dawn, lazing by the doorstep, rolling on the doormat till I take her back indoors, ready for the school drill. She runs with the boys till the porch as the school bus arrives, and then takes a morning walk, does her ‘business’ in the planter beds, occasionally ‘slaps’ her boyfriend Simba and gets into fights with the Alpha male of the compound cats, Mr. Grumpy Ginger. This has always been the known routine.
In cold winters, she prefers to sleep in through the night, trying to get inside the boys comforters and be out in the sun by day.
However, since this summer, Rumi has learnt how to go up and down the elevator!!!( just to compete with the big boss cat, Ginger) She steps into the elevator with random children, who allow her in! Since there are only the basement, ground and podium levels, mostly people from the podium level go to the ground level in the mornings. Rumi skilfully reaches the ground level and takes a stroll outside the compound gates!! Later, she steps into the elevator again, someone presses the podium level button and she's back! She’s been enjoying this a lot. The neighbourhood cats have become too smart! Everyone has been noticing this lately. But deep inside, this has been scaring me. I have often seen Rumi in the visitors parking lot outside the compound and have forcibly picked her up and brought her back to the garden. She exhibits a fiercely independent streak and just doesn't like compromising on her newfound freedom. She has found a new boyfriend on the streets who keeps calling her outside. I've been so hassled…
On the Saturday before the Diwali week, Rumi didn't come home in the morning as she always does. This has happened a few times and she’s generally found her way back by Saturday afternoons. However this time she didn't return even by Saturday night. We went out and came back, but there was no sign of Rumi.
I was starting to get stressed. I somehow tried to sleep through Saturday night, hoping to find her by the doormat on Sunday morning. But she wasn't there.
We went to the gym and returned. Rumi was nowhere. This was getting serious. The boys and I started searching first in the basement parking, all elevators, entrance lobby, then all around the compound. Then in the entire block , looking all along the pavements. But Rumi was nowhere to be found.
I used to always wonder if we should attach a GPS tracker to her collar. But she used to lose her collar almost every month, in trees and bushes and I had to weave new ones for her each time. She has always been a very adventurous wild cat, never sitting in one place. The entire Sunday went by searching and calling out. We asked all the neighbours, security guards, random people. This was now a matter of life and death. It was almost 48 hours and no news about Rumi.
I made “Missing Cat "posters and stuck them EVERYWHERE. Then finally, I went to the CCTV room and requested to check the footage for the weekend. The security guard was very cooperative. Together, we browsed through the videos, starting from Friday night.
I saw her on camera as she ran out after dinner on Friday night , to climb a tree. She was roaming around in the garden, spotted by various cameras and the last scene was at 8.45pm, when she was seen sitting by the window at block 12. We checked all the footage throughout the night. She was not seen in any lobbies or any entrances on Saturday or Sunday. I was beginning to wonder if anything bad had happened to her within the compound!
I kept tossing and turning the entire sleepless Sunday night. Monday morning brought no sign of Rumi as well. The boys went to school, with no one running beside them till the school bus arrived… I walked around the neighbourhood, my heart pacing at double speed, sobbing …and finally breaking down. What if she had wandered off far away to another sector… What if she had eloped willingly with her street boyfriend!!! Then there was no way to bring her back…
I just didn't want to give up on her. I went to the security guard again to check the second to second footage from Friday night to Saturday morning. Finally after two hours, I concluded, she must be definitely trapped somewhere. The security guard happened to mention that some folks from block 12 had moved out on Friday night. She was seen last sitting by block 12. I thought what if she had got locked into the empty apartment of the people that had moved!!! The guard informed me that the key was still with the tenant and he was supposed to return it by afternoon. I tried opening the ground floor kitchen window and tried calling out to Rumi. But there was no answer.
The boys returned from school and that's when the tenant of block 12 came in to handover the keys of the empty apartment! I said to the boys, “Lets just check one last time”. We went in. I was looking at the kitchen side as I thought she might have climbed in from the kitchen window. Arhaant checked the store room. Abhiir went into the balcony that opened on the roadside….. “RUMIiiii”He cried! There she was! Poor little thing, sitting in the corner of the balcony…caked in sand…wishing for someone(US) to save her!
I took her in my arms. So frail, so thin, she was without food and water for almost 60 hours!!!
I had decided, I won't celebrate Diwali if we didn't find Rumi…
Finally she was with us again… So so grateful to have her back! We took her home, gave her food and lots of water to drink. She was a little panic-stricken. She wanted to run about. I let her run free, fiercely watching over her as her mum did when she was a kitten. She slept through the night and ate double the amount of food.
Finally after a good 24 hours, she was back to normal. Her playful self. We gave her a nice warm bath.
Life has given us a second chance with Rumi. Life has given her a second chance with us! I thanked goddess Laxmi for giving Rumi back to us. Rumi is my real treasure. My daughter in another avatar! My child, who actually looks the most like me! I cannot imagine my life without Rumi. Together we meditated on Goddess Laxmi Mantra on the puja day.
In our childhood stories, there used to be a giant who’s life was trapped in a parrot's. If the parrot dies, the giant dies. I could understand this metaphor only today. My life is entangled in Rumi’s. I realized how much she means to me. In fact, all of us realized how we cannot live without her…
Looking at Rumi sleeping on the sofa at home just brings so much joy to me. This scene is what I need to be happy.
Diwali this time, indeed brought us a whole new beginning, reconfirming my faith and my priorities.
Learnt my lesson, count my blessings, Look to the rising sun, RUN RUN RUN…
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