The Cats Of Desert Springs Village
Like most of life’s epochal events, it started as a tiny ripple. A stray cat appeared outside our home. My partner, more of a dog person, didn’t really warm up to the new entrant, who lay insouciantly outside the front door, after having its fill of a piece of chicken that conveniently fell near it. I tried explaining that cats can teach our species a lot about how to live life with an understated air of nonchalance, while asking philosophical questions with their tails. Plus after a long day of wrestling with deadlines and handling egos ensconced in egg shells, coming home to watch cats groom themselves can be very meditative. I have heard that there’s even a Yoga pose called the ‘cat stretch’. Googled it too - looks so graceful. Now when it comes to dogs (not that I love them any less), I’d be careful using search engines for phrases such as ‘dog positions’.
Coming back to the cat, while I tried extolling the virtues of its species, it really wasn’t waiting for any approval. A couple of days later, it turned up with two kittens in tow. That was ten years ago. Today, we’re still in the same place, and together with my ‘I-still-love-dogs-but-damn-these-cats-are-cute’ partner end up feeding around 20 cats every day. When the lockdowns started, and people were wrestling over toilet rolls, we were quietly prowling supermarket aisles, stocking up on cat food. The WFH status of our lives has turned out to be a windfall for the cats. In the BP (Before Pandemic) days, I’d dash out of the front door, with barely a couple of minutes to spare for life-affirming chin rubs. Now most of them line up politely every morning for their respective massage sessions, whiskery faces looking up in anticipation.
Most of these cats are strays; quite a few of them fall in the abandoned category. All of them come seeking love, rubs, and a bit of grub. Which in the bigger context of life, is not really asking for much.
