The cat was moving in the corridor of the hotel with a rare feline confidence, every now and then purring and casting curious looks in the direction of the tourists who kept coming, despite the severe cold, in the Golden City of Rajasthan, Jaisalmer, nicknamed so, as it stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone.
“Meow”, it purred in my direction.
It meowed again when there was no response from me. If it was expecting me to meow back, her expectations were belied, because I merely smiled.
Can cats decode smiles ? I wondered.
Maybe the cats of Jaisalmer have a strong affinity with smiling strangers, because she walked up to where I was sitting on the sofa, and looked up at me, love pouring forth from her eyes. I bent down to caress her and she quickly snuggled up next to my feet.
Soon night fell, and I realised that the friendly cat had etched herself on my mind. The moment I drifted into sleep, she followed me into my dream world, purring and nestling next to me .
The neem, Ashoka and eucalyptus trees were swaying in the cold breeze singing nocturnal lullabies, every now and then the lullabies were pierced by a frantic fluttering of wings, the rumbling of a truck and the screech of tires.
The cat kept looking at me for some time and quickly changed into the cat of my childhood. She had adopted our renovated ancestral house as her own and I would often see her plodding in the attic.
Once on seeing me, she quickly caught hold of a running rat and put the dead rat near my feet, looking up at me- perhaps waiting for a word of thanks.
What a great way of making friends!
From then onwards, whenever she heard my footfall, she would get whatever she could lay her hands on -a piece of thread, a colourful, plastic ball, or just an old envelope for her human friend.
This cat of my dream had also brought me a brilliant gift.
I looked at the wall clock . It was 3 am.
She had gifted me a story idea.
I quickly slipped out of bed, and headed towards the computer, and started penning a story.
Was the cat still there sheathed in a quilt of gold, or was it was the moon up to its old pranks?
‘My eyes flew open and there she was- in flesh and blood…’
The night traffic seemed to have stopped and even the birds had nudged themselves into silence – to eavesdrop on the story idea forming in my brain.
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