Muri - Our first love

        It was that time when my husband (then fiancé) started texting each other to know our likes and dislikes. He asked me a question -"Do you love pets?". I said, "I don't know if I love pets, but I used to feed a stray dog during my stay in Bengaluru". I also mentioned, I don't like the dog licking and so, I just feed her Parle-G biscuits and bid bye. My husband went on to ask if I liked cats. I said, I have never got a chance to interact with cats or kittens. So, the answer was, "I don't know". 

            

          The reason why he asked was, my parents in laws were bringing up two kittens - Kichu and Chichu. Eventually, post marriage, I learnt to interact with them, slowly picking up the do's and don'ts. Kichu  liked me very much. He would come and sit on my lap and fall asleep. He is a people person. And that's how I got introduced to my first pet cat - Kichu.

         A year after our wedding, we moved to a new apartment closer to my work location. The community had a lot of stray cats and kittens. My husband and I used to feed egg yolks to a set of three kittens every other day. One of the kittens was very friendly and social. But after few weeks, it (Gender: not known) went missing. We felt bad and we stopped feeding them as the other two kittens were very scared to see us. This happened in August.

        During November, when the winter was slowly bringing down the temperature, we saw a kitten waiting patiently near our car. Suraj identified it as one of the two scared kittens. She was a mix of multiple shades of grey, brown, beige. We named her 'Muri'. Suraj was very moved to see this baby waiting to be fed. We, then started feeding her daily. She grew up to become a beautiful young lady cat.

        Two years later, when we were about to shift from the apartment to our new home, she went missing. We were worried that she is injured or sick. Suraj's mother said, she might also be pregnant and must have chosen to hide to deliver her babies. One week before we moved out of the apartment, she came to me at the parking spot which is the regular place, we feed her. I felt relieved and wept that she is safe. 

        I started to search for her babies by walking in and around multiple blocks, but I couldn't find. With a heavy hear and a belief that someone else will feed Muri and her babies, we vacated the apartment. My husband and I decided that we would visit our old apartment once in a while to see how Muri is doing.

        Few weeks later, we had to attend the naming ceremony of my colleague's son. My colleague was few miles away from our old apartment. I insisted that we go and check on Muri. We drove to our usual parking spot in our old apartment community. We called out for Muri and to our surprise, Muri came out of the bushes near the leasing office. She was very lean and we could relate that she was feeding her babies. We could also hear the cute, high pitched meows from her babies. 

        First things first, we fed Muri with the usual cat food she eats. We then proceeded to feed the babies as well. There were three kittens: An orange fluffy one - "The Fanta", A pure white furry one - "The Carpet" and a mini version of Muri - mix of three shades just like her mom - "Muri Jr".

        

To be continued....