Our Godfather In The City

It was not even a love-hate relationship. There was no love lost between us. I hated her. I feared her, for no fault of her. The very sight of her was nauseating, disgusting.
She was always affable, loving, calm and quiet. She didn’t do me any harm. In fact no harm to anybody in our room. Except Valiyachan( my step-father) my other room-mates also disliked and hated her. Unlike me, my room-mates ventillated their ire and anger by kicking her to the outside uttering choice epithets in the absence of Valiyachan. If he had come across such a scene certainly, yes certainly he would have thrown them out because he was our godfather and in a sense our local guardian in that far-away city. Such was the intensity of his love and affection towards her. In fact she was like one of his children. While he was in the room he always called her in sweet and loving tones, “Chellu my naughty girl, come on”. In no time she would appear from nowhere, jump into his lap casting her serene eyes at him, I didn’t know whether she was conveying her secret sorrows and joy through her looks, he would caress her plant kisses on her, uttering sweet nothings. Never did he forget to bring fish-fry from the nearest hotel wrapped up in a rough paper and would feed her, watch her eating the fish with a kind look.
We would grit our teeth in anger and hatred and would move out, and would spend our time watching people moving through the streets, speeding vehicles and vegetable vendors lining along the pavements shouting “Baji, Baji” to all and sundry. The smell from the fish market always permeated the atmosphere.
Chellu’s ‘Kandakasani’[ bad time] commenced from the moment, I started living in that room. Still, I recall the day I arrived in the city on a misty morning of December. Dadar station was crowded with commuters as always, the platform bathed in flood of light, along with other passengers I moved out of the compartment to the platform with my luggage and as my arrival was already intimated to Valiyachan before I started from Alwaye in Kerala, he along with his youthful room-mates Ravi, Raju, Bhadran, Kunjumon and Thankachan all in their sweaters to escape from the chilly morning, anxiously searching for me among the faceless crowd.
Valiyachan fished me out from among the crowd and all others still strangers to me came near me, shook hands with me, introduced themselves to me, inquired about my journey with smiling faces and led me out of the platform to a world of lights with countless number of taxis parked outside. In fact I was thrilled very much, and forgot my home-sickness for a while. After having tea from a nearby Irani restaurant boarded a taxi which was driven by a Sardarji. The taxi sped along the streets, the street lights looked like welcoming the “new cityman”, the rush of the vehicles was about to pick up in one or two hours. The cold winds were needling me and I was shivering like anything, I was the only person in the taxi who had not worn a sweater.
Within fifteen minutes we reached Labour camp area of Matunga. The car screeched to a halt in front of a small room with tiled roofs and stained white-washed walls. Valiyachan locked open the door, switched on the lights, all of us entered the room and to my horror I saw a white cat with brown patches here and there, with glowing eyes, approaching Valiyachan crying ‘Miaow Miaow’. The sight of Valiyachan picking her up from the floor planting kisses all over her while sitting on the single cot in the room calling “Chellu Mole, Chellu Mole, you feel cold , eh, poor Chellu” in affectionate tone was nauseating and allergic to me. I shuddered with fear and cast my eyes on the faces of my young room-mates. They were also gritting their teeth in anger and hatred to the creature. I felt some relief. Atleast I have got a company here! Thank God! I soliloquized.
Thus life went on in the city, I got more and more acquainted with my room-mates, became intimate, but fear of the creature mounted day by day. Like me my friends also wanted to get rid of the creature without creating any suspicion in the mind of Valiyachan. If our plans got leaked some how we knew what kind of future awaited us. We wanted to find a way out scratched our heads thinking how to get rid of her without leaking the news to anybody.
“Yeah, Yeah, got it. got it! I have found a way out! Simple. Quite simple”- Raju was in a jubilant mood. He reminded me of Siddhartha attaining enlightenment after years of ‘Thapas’(meditation) at Bodh Gaya. “Raju has turned out to be a Buddha”- I smiled to myself.
Raju began to explain his plans in detail. We all sat close to him with bated breath.
‘Our god father will go to work at about 4.30AM. After the day’s work, he will be reaching the room only in the evening. Soon after he is out of station, in the wee hours of the morning, we will pack our “dear Chellu” in a sack and all of us will move to Bandra carrying her and leave the sack carrying Chellu at a remote place, run away from the scene, catch the train to Mahim and rush to the room’- What about my idea? In self congratulatory tone he cast his glance at us. We were wondered exhilarated, smiled approvingly and patted him on his back - “Raju, you are great!”
“What would be our godfather’s reaction?”- Ravi was somewhat apprehensive.
“He may miss her badly for atleast one week or two. Then he will also forget the entire episode. These kinds of things are the order of the day in a big city like this. Being the senior most among us, he knows the truth better than us”- Raju went philosophical.
As expected Valiyachan reached the room at about 8PM in the evening, The fish-fry wrapped in a packet was with him to feed his beloved daughter ‘Chellu’. His smiling face gave way to look of gloom. While pretending to be engaged in our daily chores we were watching his reaction.
“What happened to my pet? Chellu, Chellu”- he called aloud. No response. He was dumb-struck. “What must have happened to her”?- As if from some characters in a film we looked at each other with our eyes wide open.
“Chellu Chellu”- We joined the chorus. Raju was the ‘saddest’ among the lot. I saw him wiping his eyes and I held back a laughter with much effort.
With frustration writ large on his face Valiyachan spent days pondering a lot about his beloved.
“She was a loving and affable cat. She was like a child to me. Even among humanbeings such love, affection and gratitude are very rare these day”- He always wanted to share his sorrows and reminiscences about his foster-child. He always prayed to God and sought blessings for her safe arrival from somewhere.
Days, weeks and months went by. Valiyachan’s anxious wait and prayer continued unabated.
Contrary to all our foolish beliefs, one evening at about 9 'O’ clock, while Valiyachan was taking a rest on his cot and ourselves engaged in our routine works as if from no where, Chellu landed on the hairy chest of Valiyachan with her “ Miaow, Miaow” , like music to his ears.
“Chellu, my naughty girl atlast you have arrived. Where were you my naughty child? I was very much sad. Now I am very much happy and excited.” Valiyachan, his eyes welling up with joy and sadness, was seen caressing and kissing her to his hearts content.
All of us felt like weeping and from that day onwards we also began to love her….