You say everything will be alright. Will be just fine.
Yesterday a kitten, a little hapless thing brought me to pieces because it made me think of all the things we abandon – just as easily as dumping garbage on a curb. She was trying to poo but couldn’t. Trying to sip milk, but couldn’t. She curled up by my foot when I faltered beside the road to see if anyone else was around. A sibling, a mother perhaps. An unlikely human guardian. Many people walked past. A stray dog came closer to sniff the goings on. A woman smiled and said something in Marathi but did not slow down. The sun was shining, the breeze so pleasant. We stood there – the kitten beside my feet, I looking around – for a good while. No one came to claim the little thing.
Sometimes Nature is cruel in her indifference, but I have learnt that it needs to be indifferent to survive. There’s a reason there’s only one Atlas – the Titan who shoulders the world. There’s a reason why we are mortals. The kitten mewed and I stood there, observing her. A glittering gash on the left ear, skeletal body, shifty eyes. She got up and went again to go. She couldn’t. After a while she came back and mewed. If only I had some water I thought. If only I knew a vet I thought.
A famous musician* played Brahms and Bach et al on violin in the L’Enfant Plaza (a metro station "at the nucleus of federal Washington") for 45 minutes and only seven out of a thousand people stopped to hear him. It was an experiment to see whether people can pick up on beauty and slow down to appreciate it in unlikely places.
Classical music is not comparable to a kitten, a stray pup, a grove of grass or a bunch of trees beside a road. But there’s something that ties you to them. Something that makes you feel small and humble and vast and limitless all at the same time when you see the open sky or a lake. Something that makes you laugh when you see a langoor – tail held high, agile and graceful – being chased by a stray dog, zigzagging through pedestrians and young cyclists.
A stray, ferocious for biting, came over and licked my fingers when I asked for passage through the road he is boss of. Someone would call me crazy but for the past few months I have begun to feel a lot more open to strays than before. A lot less worried about catching something from them. Terrified about infecting them with something of mine. And I feel grateful when they are open for my faltering gestures of equality, if not friendship.
I hope the kitten is fine because the best I could do was call up a man who has a soft corner for all. He called the vet. They found the kitten and gave her an injection after which they said she’d be fine. This man was kind enough to update me on that. But the kitten is free and I hope will survive.
Yesterday a kitten, a little hapless thing brought me to pieces because it made me think of all the things we abandon – just as easily as dumping garbage on a curb. She was trying to poo but couldn’t. Trying to sip milk, but couldn’t. She curled up by my foot when I faltered beside the road to see if anyone else was around. A sibling, a mother perhaps. An unlikely human guardian. Many people walked past. A stray dog came closer to sniff the goings on. A woman smiled and said something in Marathi but did not slow down. The sun was shining, the breeze so pleasant. We stood there – the kitten beside my feet, I looking around – for a good while. No one came to claim the little thing.
Sometimes Nature is cruel in her indifference, but I have learnt that it needs to be indifferent to survive. There’s a reason there’s only one Atlas – the Titan who shoulders the world. There’s a reason why we are mortals. The kitten mewed and I stood there, observing her. A glittering gash on the left ear, skeletal body, shifty eyes. She got up and went again to go. She couldn’t. After a while she came back and mewed. If only I had some water I thought. If only I knew a vet I thought.
A famous musician* played Brahms and Bach et al on violin in the L’Enfant Plaza (a metro station "at the nucleus of federal Washington") for 45 minutes and only seven out of a thousand people stopped to hear him. It was an experiment to see whether people can pick up on beauty and slow down to appreciate it in unlikely places.
Classical music is not comparable to a kitten, a stray pup, a grove of grass or a bunch of trees beside a road. But there’s something that ties you to them. Something that makes you feel small and humble and vast and limitless all at the same time when you see the open sky or a lake. Something that makes you laugh when you see a langoor – tail held high, agile and graceful – being chased by a stray dog, zigzagging through pedestrians and young cyclists.
A stray, ferocious for biting, came over and licked my fingers when I asked for passage through the road he is boss of. Someone would call me crazy but for the past few months I have begun to feel a lot more open to strays than before. A lot less worried about catching something from them. Terrified about infecting them with something of mine. And I feel grateful when they are open for my faltering gestures of equality, if not friendship.
I hope the kitten is fine because the best I could do was call up a man who has a soft corner for all. He called the vet. They found the kitten and gave her an injection after which they said she’d be fine. This man was kind enough to update me on that. But the kitten is free and I hope will survive.
To be honest though, I feel a bit of a coward for not bringing the wee thing home to ensure she’s okay.
You say everything will be alright. Will be just fine.
You say everything will be alright. Will be just fine.
Maybe it will become a truth.
Someday.
*Pearls Before Breakfast for the post on the musical experiment.
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