It all began with Gundya.
Gundya was a striped ginger kitten who lived in Shivaji
Park. He was mostly to be found lounging around the Ganesh Temple with a morose
face.
Sir Alfred Catterton, a large white aristo-cat who used to pop
by the temple from time to time for free buttermilk, wondered why Gundya was so
sad.
"Well, young chap! Why the long face?" he asked.
"Oh 'oy, Sir Alfred," said Gundya, stirring from his perch,
tapping his own nose by mistake. "It's nuffink. Really."
"You can't brush me away like a human, sport. I've seen you
around, you know. You always have a sad sort of look about you. It's not right.
We're Cats of Mumbai, we pretty much own the damn city, but you...you give our
community a bad name with this depressed demeanour of yours."
But Gundya turned away from Sir Alfred and escaped into the
hedges, preferring to flee rather than answer.
Many older cats tried to reason with Gundya and snap him out of
his sadness. Kitty Carsitter, whose humans owned a Honda Civic, even took him
for a ride around the park. Old Comrade Katnakoff, the big grey cat from C Ram
Chowk tried to beat sense into him, but Gundya escaped him too, and continued
with his sad-cat act.
When nothing changed, and weeks became months, Sir Alfred
finally arranged an intervention, and twenty cats from Shivaji Park and
surrounding areas cornered Gundya behind the temple and made him talk.
Confronted by all those he admired - and in some cases, feared -
Gundya finally had to confess.
"It's the rat outside the Temple door. A big, fat, white
rat. 'e sits on a plinth and mocks me all day! I tried to bite 'is tail but
broke a tooth! I climbed on 'im to get at his neck and some human picked me up
and chucked me away. I stalked him and attacked 'im at night, but only slipped
off 'is back and fell. An' I swear, 'e laughs at me, laughs and laughs and
calls me a loser!"
Alarmed and concerned, the gaggle of cats formed a sortie led by
Katnakoff and headed for the Temple. That's when they saw the rat - made of
plaster-of-paris, adorned with turmeric and with the most supercilious
expression ever seen on a rat.
Sir Alfred made a move to swipe the leer off its face, but
Katnakoff stopped him with a masterful swoosh of his tail.
"Don't bother, Sir Alfred. I was a kitten myself when I first
saw this one. He's got friends in high places, he does. I stalked him, I
swooped, I'd almost got him - but then a voice came from inside the temple, and
I swear - I swear the Elephant-headed one's eyes glowed!"
The sortie shivered, their fur standing on their backs. Cats
feared few things, but the Elephant-headed one struck terror into their hearts.
"Those eyes haunt me!" wailed Katnakoff, as the
memories flooded his brain. "To this day, they do!"
And so, twenty cats took up the yowl, the unholy sound tearing
through the relative silence of night.
It led to the Shivaji Park residents association, one of the
most proactive in India, lodging a formal complaint with the Municipal
Corporation. With elections around the corner, the complaint was acted upon,
and two weeks later, when Katnakoff passed by the Temple on his rounds and saw
Sir Alfred poking around, he felt obliged to explain what had happened.
“They came in a van,” said the old Communist feline. “Took away
all the stray cats they could find. Probably turned ‘em into footrugs or
pillow-cases.”
“That’s terrible!” said Sir Alfred, whiskers drooping. “Poor
Gundya! He wasn’t a bad kitten.”
“I was coming to that. Gundya escaped
the carnage, y’see.”
“What! Where is he then?”
Katnakoff motioned to Sir Alfred with a twitch of his ear, leading
him towards the Kali Mandir, a few meters away. And there stood Gundya,
surrounded by a circle of fawning admirers, sitting by the feet of the statue,
vermillion on his forehead and bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the
larger, painted feline on which the Goddess sat.
He saw Sir Alfred and smiled a wide
smile.
“He roars! The little tiger roars!” called out the priest, and
the fawning admirers ooh-ed and aah-ed.
Sir Alfred raised a cheery paw at
Gundya.
“Well, what do you know,” he said to Comrade Katnakoff as they walked
away, “that actually worked out quite well.”
The big grey cat nodded his head
sagaciously.
“Those the Elephant-headed one favours always fare well in
life.”
“True, that. No wonder humans
consider him a God.”
“Maybe he is, at that. His blessing
be upon all cats!”
They had reached the Temple gates now, where the white rat on a
plinth leered down at them, mocking.
“Not him, though.”
“A mistake, an obvious mistake.”
“Typing error. Rat. Cat. Probably got
mixed up in translation.”
Years later, when Comrade Katnakoff became India’s first feline
President, and Sir Alfred his Prime Minister, they would mark the start of the
glorious new era by replacing the rat with the cat as the elephant-headed God’s
official vehicle and commemorating Gundya with a gorgeous gilded statue to
replace the one of the rat outside the Temple.
Hmm... Glad I discoveered you.... I wonder why it took so long? Anyway! I'm here now.
ReplyDeleteNicely done! Love the names.. :)
Thank you! I hope you keep coming back :)
DeleteBrilliant and hilarious.
ReplyDelete