CATapulted

After blogging very early this morning, I was about ready to take a power nap before Yums woke up for the day.  Unfortunately, I couldn't even get a minute's worth.  A constant meowing kept me wide awake.  The sound was coming from somewhere close, and after investigating a little, I found the source to be the window air conditioner in my room.  My first thought was that the cat's trapped inside it.  Yums woke up ten seconds later and after the morning routine we went downstairs to see what the cat was hollering about.  Downstairs, it was like everyone had spotted a flying cat or something; my khala, the two maids, and the baba (gatekeeper) were all huddled outside the kitchen door staring at something in the sky.  As I approached the door cautiously, Yums nestled on my left hip, curious as ever, the morning's bone-chilling breeze carried with it some of the conversation that was taking place outside. 

"Good.  It's being punished."(Khala)

"Baaji ab kya hoga?" (Baba asking what's going to happen now)

"Magar yeh upar kaisay pohnchi?" (Maid asking how it got there in the first place)

That's when I saw it.  It really was a flying cat, or it had been.  The cat was sitting on the concrete ledge above the air conditioner of my room.  It looked as if it had either flown up (totally impossible) or it had somehow climbed the drain pipe beside the air conditioner or the one hanging from the air conditioner's vent.  Khala was completely apathetic towards the monster that ate her birds.  When I mused out loud that if it were to jump down, or more likely fall, it would probably die, this is how she responded:

"Let it fall and die." (in not so many words, but yeah.)

Mukkafaat-e-Amal, as we call it in Urdu.  Poetic justice.  Nobody can escape it's wrath.  The pigeons that the cat had climbed up to eat in the first place had flown to another ledge and were now twisting their necks from left to right in amusement. 

I kind of felt bad for the feline bird killer.  Had I stayed a bit longer at my Nani's today, I would've definitely tried to help it.  Come to think of it, the poor cat has had quite a history at Nani's house.  It's been hanging around for over six months now, trying to emotionally blackmail some food out of us.  I've snuck some milk to it on Nani's orders but Khala has a strict "don't feed the cat" policy, so we try to ignore it mostly.  She's right too.. this cat isn't just hungry, it's downright GREEDY!  I remember throwing it some french toast in an attempt to get Yums to eat it too.  The cat pounced at it and gobbled it up, hungrily muttering something under its breath.  After that it longingly watched every bite that went into my daughter's mouth.  Eight hours later Yums threw up and thus began the stomach virus saga.  Not that I'm blaming the cat for it.  We've thrown chappals, water, oven mits, and even black pepper at the cat to try to scare it away from whining outside the door, but so far nothing has worked.  The cat's new target is the baba.  We've heard him yelling in pashto at the cat, and asked him what it was about only to find out the cat had licked and slobbered all over his dinner.  Once it even drank up his chai as he took a quick bathroom break.  We've tried numerous times to bag the cat and release it somewhere far, far away, but it somehow always finds its way back home, if home is what it would call our humble abode. 

Since I've been writing this post in breaks, I have just received word that the cat is no longer on the ledge.  It must've finally figured out how to get down.  Maybe it jumped onto the roof, which was a shorter leap than to any other structure, and also a smarter one.  Perhaps it attempted to leap ledges like Aladdin and then go for the big tree in the back and succeeded...or failed.  I have no way of knowing until tomorrow morning, but until then, here's to our very own short-sighted, persistent stray and its poverty of intellect!