Ganashyam and Black Panther

This is about the second black cat in our life. About thirty years ago, when we were living in a suburban house, we had a black cat. This cat, Karuppan (alias Galileo), was an astronomer—a night-sky gazer. While other cats were chasing mice, this one spent his nights watching stars and meteors from our water tank cover. He simply vanished one night, immersing us in great sorrow. Maybe some UFO lured him away by sending a flying saucer filled with milk from the Milky Way!

Now, here comes another black cat:

Black Panther. While the one we had long ago was a male, this one is a female. While the old one was fully black, this one’s paws are white.

It is as if she is going around wearing white gloves. The colony we moved into recently is a colony of pussies. The cats take full advantage of the protection available in the dog-free compound to fool and frolic around. In short, one can call our colony a kind of cat sanctuary.

These cats have two particular friends. One was an employee of an office located in the colony who regularly fed them. On Saturdays, before leaving for home, he fills a small container with cat food and leaves it outside the door of his office for the cats to eat on the following Sunday. He can’t stand a day's starvation for his cats; he is that caring.

The other friend is a boy of about ten named Ganashyam. He has a way with kittens and cats. Cats are mesmerizers, but this boy mesmerizes the cats.

Before the arrival of Black Panther, he was close to and played with two orange cats, named Fanta and Mirinda by my son, Krishna. These two cats used to turn into puppies in Ganashyam’s presence. When Black Panther, the black cat with white paws, entered the scene, Ganashyam forgot all about the two oranges and started fondling the newly arrived black she-cat.

While Mirinda got offended and left Ganashyam’s company immediately, Fanta kept looking on with a heavy heart from a distance as her once-close human friend played with his new black belle.

Black Panther lives with us, but all her heart is with Ganashyam. Black Panther is a very shy creature, but when it comes to Shyam, she melts like butter. I don’t know why, but there exists an almost visible to-and-fro exchange of waves of friendship between them.

When he rides his cycle within the colony, Black Panther follows him in leaps and bounds. Once, when my son Krishna rebuked Black Panther for spoiling the seat cover of my scooter (which she is fond of scratching), Ganashyam intervened.

“Don’t scold BP, please. I will buy a new seat cover for your father’s scooter,” he pleaded.

Some people with warped minds tried to scare the boy by telling him that black cats were inauspicious creatures. “Stop playing with it. It will bring bad luck,” they preached. But Ganashyam has not listened to them.

A week ago, I saw Ganashyam and his grandfather returning from their weekly shopping trip. Ganashyam was cradling a baby bed in his hands.

“A baby bed! For whom?” I asked.

“For our Black Panther,” he replied, as cool as a cat.