Ferocious Felines

One of the main arrangements that we have had to make in preparation for our visit home for the holidays is to plan for the care of Mira and Chaya. Bringing them with us is not an option so we have had to think of other ways that their needs can be met while we are out of town. This has been a bigger chore than we could have imagined. Back home in the States it would have been no problem to give the key to a neighbor and ask that they stop by every day to replenish their food and water and clean out their litter boxes. Any person there would be perfectly comfortable carrying out these simple tasks and unless they had severe allergies would be happy to do it. Not so here. The main issue is that most people are afraid of cats. That's right, afraid of little furry creatures that weigh no more than 10 pounds (Mira and Chaya weigh in at a whopping 4 lbs.). I absolutely can not understand this. I have already described at length the number of stray dogs in the streets which somehow do not frighten nearly as many people despite their obvious larger size and greater aggression. And I cannot contribute this irrational fear to lack of exposure as there is no shortage of stray cats in India. Finally, India is famed the world over as the home to one of the greatest felines ever, the regal Bengal tiger. I would think that as close relatives to this splendid animal, cats would be respected, not feared. Now that I think of it though, the only time I have seen or heard anything in reference to a tiger is watching a few sleazy 80s style heros fighting them in F movies (I could never offend B movie stars like Eric Roberts and Billy Baldwin by placing these Indian movies in their class).



We thought that the best situation for our kittens would be to have someone come to our apartment to give them food and water and clean their litter once a day, 10 minutes tops. None of our coworkers live close enough to us to manage this, and the one who does is both a bit scared of cats having never had exposure to them and is also going for a visit home during the time that we will be gone. We do not know any of our neighbors, they are all middle-aged or older Indians and they regard us with caution. We then thought that perhaps our landlords who live just below us might be willing but then realized that they (along with most other middle-class Indians) don't even do their own cleaning or dishes so why in the world would they consider cleaning our kittens' toilet when they won't even clean their own. We then thought that maybe the person who actually does clean their toilet might be interested in making some extra cash so we asked our landlords if they would run the idea by their maid.



A bit now about Indian maids (the following are observations based only on my time and experience so far in India). It would probably not come as a shock to you to find out that maids are very poorly paid, I would say that they earn anywhere from $0.50 to $1 an hour. These women are unskilled workers and are infamous for being lazy, thieves, unreliable and stupid (at least according to 95% of their employers). They are often married with a couple to several children. It is also not uncommon that they are the sole or major breadwinner due to a husband's injury, alcoholism, or good old-fashioned laziness. Money is usually so tight in a maid's home that she will take extra food from the homes that she is working in to feed her family and often the employers will pay for certain things for the maid's family such as school books and clothes for her children. We thought that based on the real need for extra money in most maid's homes, our landlord's maid would jump at the chance to make some extra cash. She comes every day to clean their apartment so we assumed that it would be no trouble for her to pop up to our apartment and spend 10 minutes at the most giving the kittens fresh water, pouring out some dry cat food, and scooping out their litter with the pooper-scooper. We were offering to pay 1000 Rs for this service which comes to $6.58 an hour (if it actually took her the full 10 minutes). A no-brainer, right? I know that if I were cash strapped and trying to take care of my kids I would do almost anything to try to make ends meet. I was shocked when our landlords told us that she didn't want to do it because she is scared of cats! Maybe money isn't as tight for her family as I thought, or maybe she would just rather take a hand-out than actually work for her money. I can guarantee that if my family was in need, I would do ANYTHING to put food on the table, even if it involved something that I found distasteful like maybe spending 10 minutes in a room with a bunch of cockroaches (my least favorite animal). Oops, I forgot, I do that already in my own home for free! Anyway, I am on one hand relieved that she was truthful about her feelings and said no because I doubt that she would have done a very good job with the kittens if she doesn't even like them. On the other hand though I am surprised and frustrated that someone who definitely needs extra cash isn't willing to work for it. How can anyone help the less fortunate if they are not really willing to help themselves? Regardless, we need to find some other way to have our ferocious and terrifying Mira and Chaya cared for in our absence, unless we just pack them in our luggage, I wonder if we'd make it through security. I have included some pictures showing the girls at their most ferocious. Aluminum balls, silk flowers, and bills BEWARE!



Chaya loves to play "fetch" with little aluminum balls, and she stares at it intently until I finally toss it for her to retrieve.


She is ready for the next toss!




Mira is a very smart kitten, she tears up all of the bills that come in the mail!



When there aren't any bills to destroy, a flower will do.