Cat centric musings

 

Cats polarize opinions sharply. You may either love them or hate them, ignoring is the option exclusively exercised by the cats alone. This is contrary to the position of dogs, as they are admired universally. I recently came across an article citing research which concludes that cats disrupt the local food chain. It left me flummoxed – how can the part disrupt the whole? But such is the presence of cats – prompting people to pursue research, proving the futility of their very existence! In fact we even have a vernacular proverb which can be loosely translated as – “as useless as cat shit!” The aversion towards cats can be so much that my neighbor strongly objected to our feeding a stray cat for the sole reason that our action produces the cat shit which pollutes their garden!

However not everybody in the world hates cats. This became evident when I came across another article which analyzed cat emotions and tried to make its readers understand cats better and also empathize with them. It warmed the cockles of my heart because I am a cat lover. But my love for cats is selfless! All the antipathy that cats generate within people is because of the perceived indifference that they suffer while trying to interact with them. The dogs, conversely, are anything but indifferent towards us. In spite of all the clumsy tail wagging as well as the sloppy and slurpy licking, it is this animated reciprocation to all human overtures that endears them to people.

I tried to search for reasons that have created such a soft corner for cats in my heart and found that their grace, elegance, precision and economy of movement makes me happy. Their being inspires me to try and achieve that ever elusive perfection. In the end all I can say is that it takes all kinds to make up the world. Winston Churchill summed it up very nicely when he said – “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down upon us. Only the pigs treat us as equals!”