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Story Time: Autobiography of a cat
I’m pretty sure that you all are well acquainted with my personality. You have definitely seen me stealing stuff from your homes, wandering in the fish market and certainly heard my strangled voice at midnight while I was quarreling with my siblings.
I am leading the last days of my life. I can remember when I was born in an impecunious family. My mother had no other source of feeding us except stealing. So we led a prosperous life in the vicinity of a farmer’s home. But the happiest days of my life came to an end as one day my mother was beaten severely by the farmer because she had stolen his lunch. The sluggish steps of my mother instantly brought home to me the bleak days of my future. From that day, the farmer was not happy with us living at his house. The next day I was playing along with my siblings, oblivious to the looming jeopardy which was about to come. I was trapped and put in a narrow box. I felt suffocated and dizzy in that tight box.
After a short while, someone opened the box and threw us in a place totally unknown to us. A crowded, noisy, busy place it was. People were arguing with each other and some people were even using abusive language loudly. After a short while, I came to know that it was a fish market. My brother and I were analyzing that strange place calmly when a boy who seemed to be in his teens, hit me with a stone on my back. He laughed and said ‘Lag gaya nishanay par!’ Unaware of the excruciating pain in my back. From that day my siblings were strayed and since that incident, I have been afraid of human beings. Whenever I see a man, I try to keep away from him, whether he is sober or cruel.
Since that gloomy day, living became too tough for me. I started looking for food, wandering here and there in search of food, but all in vain. Waiting on the heap of garbage seeking a fish spine at the fish market, jumping from home to home became my daily routine, and I have been dragging myself from hand to mouth. I still had no idea what hardships lay ahead of me, living in the fish market. One day, my problems increased further when I was once again hit on my wounded back by a shop keeper without any reason. Whenever I remember that excruciating pain, my blood boils. I wish I had died that night.
The next morning, I decided to run away from the fish market in search of a better life and shelter. I wandered from road to road all day, yet I could not find an adequate place for myself. All of a sudden, in the middle of the city, I saw a busy hotel. I immediately went there, hoping a better life and food awaited me. I stayed there, usually under different tables of customers, anticipating they would give me something to eat. After a week, I saw some of the nicest days of my life since my mother had left me.
Unfortunately, another U-turn took place in my life when two other cats joined that hotel too. After that, the hotel manager became rather fed up of customers’ complaints about us, and suggested to the manager to remove us from the hotel.
Once again, I was intimidated by the hotel manager and had to leave the place. After that, I became permanently homeless and began to live in different streets along with many other cats. In this way, the transition from farmer house to the fish market and from fish market to the hotel and eventually from hotel to the deserted streets became my way of life.
These continuous hurdles and relentless struggle for a better life have brought me to the last stage of my life. Now I’m breathing my last. I, therefore, lament and tell all of you that human beings have never paid kind attention towards an unfortunate cat.
Have any of you ever felt the hardships of our life? Have you had any kind of sympathy in your heart regarding a helpless cat? Perhaps, the answer is “NO”. At this rate, one of my brothers said, they are going to launch an agitation for the fundamental rights of cats. No sweat if the government doesn’t provide us with any kind of privileges. All we want is a piece of land where peace prevails.
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