I missed everything about my old house, from the comforting bookcase in the corner to the neighbor's flower garden. But most of all, I missed my cat.

'Cat', as I had imaginatively named him, was only a little kitten when he first came to our doorstep, cheekily mewing for food. He was different from any other cat I had encountered, full of spunk and bravado.

 He had no qualms about letting me pick him up, and even purred appreciatively when I tickled him behind his ears. He grew into a fat, pampered cat, but still maintained his own. He got into fights with all the neighborhood cats, and sometimes turned up on the doorstep in the morning, nonchalantly licking a 3-inch deep wound on his back. That was always followed by numerous visits to the vet with a screaming, kicking, furious cat, but I'm sure he forgave us for causing him so much inconvenience!


When we decided to shift to a new house, it was taken for granted that Cat would come along. But, alas, he had other plans. Alarmed by the noise and the strange goings on in our house, he decided to disappear, and come back only when things returned to normal.

Things did return to normal a few days later, but Cat did not return. We searched high and low, but of no avail - Cat was gone. We returned to our new home without Cat, and a somber mood prevailed.

Weeks passed by, and our thoughts invariably veered to Cat. We settled down in our new house, but something was always missing. I sorely missed Cat, and always imagined his orange tail whipping out of sight. When I sat looking out of the window, I often thought I saw an orange tail whip out of sight, and I was always startled.

Once, when I was sitting by the window, in a reverie, I felt a pair of feline eyes on me. I looked around, and there - sitting bolt upright next to a lamppost on the gate, was an orange cat, quite like Cat, but quite different. I went closer, and she didn't move a muscle. Sitting on her high pedestral, she looked down upon me benevolently, like a savior from the heavens above.  She continued to sit there, and always arrived mysteriously whenever I needed a cat's company!

I never saw her get down from her perch, or get up beside the lamppost, but she always sat there like a queen, regally looking down upon the follies of the mortals in the world below. I eventually named her Cat the II, because of her striking resemblance to Cat.

She soon became an integral part of our lives, and she helped us cope with the loss of Cat. With a gentle but firm paw, she established herself as Cat-in-residence in our new house, and finally, our house became a home.
Cat the II still sits on her lamppost, and regulates our comings and goings with a careful eye. She has been responsible for bringing Cat the III and Cat the IV into our lives, and despite her many successors, she still rules our household from her lamppost.

pics and text: Sadarchita Prasad
 Mount Carmel College