Cat Burglar
Cat Burglar
During the '70s, the upper floor of the neighbouring house, ‘Ambika Bhavan’, was rented by students, some from out of Poona and some from out of India, who came for undergraduate and graduate studies in Poona.
Later in the early ‘80, the same premises were rented by a medical representative, a rather colourful character who for the purpose of this story we shall call John Doe.
Around this time, along with our cocker spaniel Penny (who was a senior citizen by now), we also had a cat, of no particular pedigree, that answered to the name “Puddy”, though I suspect it actually answered to the lure of food.
Now Puddy, I might add, was not much of an economist (Trust me when I say not once did Puddy ever ask for the business section of the Times of India. Aye. And what’s more, Puddy never ever stopped by to listen to the business round-up on BBC radio! That's my story and I'm sticking with it, Sherlock.)
But as you’ll soon discover, Puddy was a staunch supporter of laissez-faire. The freer, the better.
It was a quiet summer afternoon, the type where you’d curl up with your favourite Agatha Christie murder mystery that would plunge you into the world of intrigue, shady characters and the prospect of murder. That, my friends, is an apt description of what was about to transpire.
John Doe, I might add was a bit of a show-off. Everything he did, he did ostentatiously. For one, you could hear his music blasting even before you turned the corner onto our street. And oh, the street outside his window was littered with medical sample bottles he used at night to fend off stray dogs barking under his window.
In keeping with his true colours, he had just returned from Goa with the goods, which naturally he wanted to flaunt. More prized than all the treasures of Puneri Peshwas. Delicious Goa sausages with their distinctive aroma that revived the most flagging of spirits in a jiffy. Having cooked a batch of these scrumptious delights, he set them on the window sill and went off for his shower.
Before long Puddy got a whiff of the heavenly treat and in a flash, that Spiderman would envy, appeared on the twenty-foot-high window sill, grabbed said sausages and disappeared into thin air ... just as John Doe was stepping out of his ablution.
All he saw was a smidge of black and white fur. Not much but enough to raise his hackles. His shrieks of “Thief, thief”, pierced the somnolent ambience and could be heard miles away.
In a jiffy, out came his shotgun. Charging down the steps John D. was seething with rage. Determined to settle the score once and for all, with a bullet, in a manner that Elmer J Fudd would have undoubtedly endorsed.
I cannot repeat what he said here because this is a family-friendly site, but suffice it to say that he certainly needed to get right back into the shower and clean his foul mouth, with bleach no less.
Alas, Puddy was nowhere to be found. Gone too were his cherished sausages. A seething John D. staked out the area for a couple of days, gun in hand, but to no avail.
In that brief encounter, Puddy taught John Doe a lesson in humility that the rest of the neighbourhood failed to do in his 10-plus year tenure.
If you got it, no need to flaunt it. Meow!!
Comments