Cats – Calling it home

I lived in a densely populated street, full of row houses that shared a common wall to the left and right, as well as a common wall in the back with another series of row houses in a parallel street behind. One can literally go from house to house, from one street to the other, simply walking over the roofs and climbing a few dilapidated walls. Most houses had partial Madras terrace ceiling for rooms in the front portion facing the street while rest of the structure behind had sloping roofs covered with curved burnt-clay country tiles stacked neatly in three layers. Every house had a central square or rectangular courtyard that opens to the sky. A verandah ran along each side of the courtyard covered by the sloping roofs, with red-oxide covered cement floors, and floor-to-roof teakwood pillars at each corner of the verandah. This architecture follows an ancient layout based on a system called Vastu. My family as well as my close neighbors had three generations of family members living in a single household. My father, mother, my two elder brothers, my younger sister, my first brother’s wife, his two toddler children as well as my paternal uncle, all lived under one roof. The same family structure repeated in every house in our neighborhood. Among this mass of humanity, about half a dozen cats lived, and roamed free over the roofs, terraces, in the verandah, backyard and occasionally into the open kitchen to steal a drink of milk.

A limestone and brick parapet wall separated our backyard from the neighbor’s to the right. I heard stories my brothers told about this wall and how it is as old as the abutting 100-year-old mango tree. There was a gaping hole, about a meter high and two meters wide, with jagged edges exposing the now powdered clay and the red bricks with broken edges jutting out along the inner uneven circumference of the hole. It was big enough for me to go through and jump into our neighbor’s yard whenever I wished. My mother always yelled at me when I do this as she worried that the precarious wall may collapse and crush me as I passed under. Worse yet, I may get stung by the many poisonous scorpions that lived among the dark crevices. Among the hidden chambers of this gaping hole lived the cats of our neighborhood. I have counted over six cats who were regulars, and occasionally, I have seen stranger cats from other streets venturing into this area for mating, food, or a fight. The tomcats played a special role both as a friend and as a competition in my growing up years.