A Case of Karma & Animal Instinct

For as long as I could remember, I used to crib about my life’s failures to my parents. I used to complain about how I could have become a successful cricketer, if only I had pursued it. I grumbled about how despite being a smart student, a good college and a good job had eluded me. I always felt that I never got my due in life. Whenever good things happened to others, the grumpy old man in my 20 year old body opened up to my parents.

My parents dealt with this very calmly. They never felt I was any less of an achiever than the people around me. They were staunch Hindus, the kind who never get perturbed about results but keep doing their job. My father kept telling me that Karma was the reason why good things eluded me and kept urging me not to worry. But his explanation of Karma did little to reassure the grumpy old man in me. My father had the habit of reading the scriptures to search for an answer to life’s problems but my belief system was different from his and consequently, I found no solace in either his words or books. But all this changed on the day Julie gave birth.

A few months ago, my nine year old cousin, Varshika, stayed with us for a week during her summer vacation. She was crazy about pets and somehow befriended animals within moments of interacting with them. Her most famous conquest is a deer, when she was living in Japan. One afternoon during her stay with us, she saw a cat running in the backyard and within a few minutes she was feeding milk to it. She even named her Julie. For the brief period of her stay, Varshika played with Julie all day. My parents and I never got close though. We were too uptight to let it come close to us. Julie found herself a safe place in our portico and kept showing up everyday. When Varshika returned to Bangalore, she had left us with a hungry cat that kept running around our legs.

Neither my parents nor I liked pets. We were too involved in our lives to provide an animal a proper home. But Julie left us with no other option but to take care of it. My mother’s job was starting to squeeze her but still she found time to feed Julie with milk every morning and night. Julie realized this and came to our home only when we were about to feed it. This worked for us, as we didn’t have to take care of it, but still had the joy of feeding it.

Meanwhile, Varshika’s constant pestering for a pet bore fruit. Her parents got her a well bred dog. Varshika named her Willow. Willow was the cynosure of their family’s life. She had the liberty to lick her masters and defecate anywhere in the house. She was a part of their family.

After a few months, at about the same time, both Willow and Julie were to become mothers. Julie returned to the portico and kept running there all day. She used to leap at us whenever we entered home, apparently in need of love. She had developed a rash on one of her legs. Though we wanted to take her to a vet, we never found the time or interest to do so. My mom had lost her job by this time and was terribly upset. Though she was too depressed to respond to Julie’s changed situation, she never stopped feeding her twice a day. After a few days, Julie’s excitement also reduced but she had made her home in our portico.

Willow, meanwhile was living the high life. Her nutritious vegetarian diet would have been the envy of most dogs. My aunt took her to a vet every week for vaccination shots. Varshika even took pictures of pregnant Willow and uploaded them on Orkut.

As time passed, Julie probably realized that she was due any day and start scouting for a place inside our house. We drove her out every time she came in. Sometimes we had to lift her up and drop her off in the portico. We didn’t like ourselves for it, but there was no way we could start sheltering her now. It would be a bigger responsibility with the kittens due shortly. On a particular Friday night, she was last seen when we were feeding her. Her playful moan had gotten coarse over the last few weeks.

Julie didn’t turn up on Saturday morning for milk. She was nowhere to be seen for the whole day. We assumed that she had found a safe place to give birth but didn’t know where. When I returned from work on Saturday evening, I was shocked to see Julie with six tiny kittens under my bed. My room was located on the first floor and the door was closed all day. Somehow she had found a way to enter through the open window and ensconce herself in what must have been the only safe location she knew. The sight of the once playful Julie, now looking scared made me feel happy and sad at the same time. She was clinging onto us, even though we never gave it proper care.

The sight of Julie covering the kittens with her body and looking at me with fear in her eyes made me wonder about the difference in the lives of  Willow and Julie; both domestic animals and equally worthy of love. In our case we didn’t give Julie the perfect setting for giving birth, but my cousin showered Willow with all the love in the world. Why didn’t we do more to look after Julie, even when we had been seeing Willow all along? Somewhere here, I was able to draw a parallel between my life and Julie’s. I had been constantly cribbing about not getting my due in life. My father always said that it was because of Karma but I never bought that. But when I juxtapose the image of a scared Julie protecting its kittens from the people of the very house it had chosen, and the image of Willow returning from the vet, I could think of Karma being the only reason for the difference. After that, my dad’s words sounded a little better than blah blah blah.

Julie is now safe with all her six kittens. We tucked her into a cardboard box underneath the stairs. We still feed her twice a day. No, we do not plan to raise them. When the kittens grow up a little bit and are able to defend themselves from stray dogs, we plan to let them run off.