JOIN US‘Purrfect’ felines compete for top spot
The Feline Club of India (FCI) held their first cat show in the city on Sunday. The club works towards the betterment and elevation of domestic and stray cats in India.
The event was held at the Cutchi Memon Jamath Khana, Kamraj Road and saw over 140 owners with their pets. Members of FCI’s Bengaluru team, Moin Shariff and Shah Rukh Pasha spoke to Metrolife about the show. “We have breeds such as Bengal, Siberian, Persian and even three Indian stray cats, who we register as ‘indiemaus’. And their owners are not just from Bengaluru but all over Karnataka and even other Southern states,” says Moin. Both him and Pasha are cat owners and they breed cats as a hobby. “Moin has 15 cats and got his first cat seven years ago, I only got my cat a few years ago. They’re very peaceful animals, and they crave a lot of attention. You have to take care of them like a child,” says Pasha.
The pet owners were more than enthusiastic to talk about their cats. Azra Khan has 15 cats. She got her first purebred Persian 15 years ago. “I first got a male and then a female to keep him company. I still have them with me,” she says. She was exhibiting four of her cats at the event, two were Persian kittens that were on sale for Rs 45,000.
Azra says that she doesn’t give her cats away to just anyone. “I thoroughly vet potential owners. I make sure that they know about cats and how to take care of them. They also cost around Rs 3,500 per month to maintain, so I also need to be convinced of the buyer’s ability to take care of them,” she explains.
Mohammed Hameed came for the show all the way from Mysuru with his two Bengal cats. Junior, the five-month-old cat was bought from Russia, while Sultan, the two-year-old is from Ukraine. They cost Rs 3.5 lakh each, out of which Rs 1.25 lakh was for transportation. “We had to wait a month and a half for them as there were multiple procedures to be completed. But I didn’t mind because cats are a passion for me,” says Hameed.
Although most cats at the show were purebred and bought for exorbitant amounts, the rarest of the lot — a Snowshoe — was picked up from the street. Suhas Shetty, the owner of Tommen says that he found him on St Mark Road when he was just a kitten. “I come to these events to show that cats from the streets are just as valuable and loving as any cat bought from a breeder,” he says. People shouldn’t turn a blind eye to an animal in need just because it’s not purebred, he explains.
Nalini Yeshwant, the owner of Simba, an indie breed also agrees. “People have a strange misconception about strays; they think these cats can’t be as affectionate which I think is bogus,” she says.
Nalini explains how Simba is almost like a therapy cat for her mother who is a stroke patient. “Whenever my mother would go for her physiotherapy sessions, he would always be by her side and keep her company,”
she says.