Punter was my cat. He died recently and I thought the best way to remember him is to immortalise him on the web. So this is my tribute to a wonderful cat and pet.
He came to us when he was very young. For his age he was quire big and muscular with a large face. He looked like a typical well-built South Indian movie star. So I decided to name him ‘Quickgun Murugan’. You see I like to have proper first and last names for my cats. Before Murugan I had a cat named ‘Champu Champaklal’ or Champak for short, and I had another one named ‘Pintu Pyarelal’ or Pintu for short.
Pintu was loved by everyone in the house especially my mom and we lost him or rather he lost us when we were shifting residences. Murugan was similar in colour and pattern to Pintu. So instead of calling him Murugan my mom used to call him Pintu. I tried my best to correct her but I just couldn’t get her to say Murugan. That’s when I decided to change his name to Punter. It sounded like Pintu and it was easy for my mom to say. That's him in the photos below.
But Punter was definitely not a punter. In fact he was the most sober and calm cat we ever had. He was very silent and brooding type. He very very rarely mewed in the house unless and until it was very necessary for him. In fact I once estimated that on an average he mewed once every three days. Not that his vocal chords were not working. In fact when he got into a stand-off with another cat in the neighbourhood he would make the loudest noises imaginable. But then why he was so silent in the house? Well I don’t know. Maybe because he got his meals on time. He seldom asked for food. When his meal was due he simply went into the kitchen and sat there until someone saw him. Then he would sit up and just stare at you with a poker face. He was not the one to make cute faces or tilt his head just to make you adore him or plead with his eyes or caress you around your ankles. He just did not do things like that. His stern poker face was enough to make you understand just what he wanted. And when he was done with his meals he would leave the kitchen and go to his favourite place in the balcony or under the coffee table. Likewise when he had to go out of the house he would simply sit near the main door until someone noticed him and let him out. It was only after nobody noticed him or ignored him for a long time that he would call out and that too just once. But that one mew would be loud and clear enough to make someone or the other to notice him.
That’s him in his afternoon siesta.
Another striking thing about Punter that was his ability to maintain a comfortable distance with people. He would move around and sit among people, but he never sat in anybody's lap. He would sit and laze around you but always at least two inches from you. If you pulled him towards you or put him on your lap he would simply get up the next moment and walk away. In fact he never sat on a sofa or a chair or a bed. We tried so many times to make him comfortable on a sofa or a bed but he would just not stay there. My mom has a theory that this was because of an incident that happened on 26/7/2005. You may remember it was the day the whole of Mumbai got submerged under water. Well I was stuck at office that day and decided to stay put there. It was the first time I was not returning home from office, there was no communication with my folks and everyone at home was tense and worried. Our colony which normally does not get affected even in the worst of monsoon was also under knee deep water that day. Punter was sleeping in my bed that night and mom was happy about it because she felt ‘as if her son was at home’. Well next morning mom woke up to a terrible smell in the house and it was traced to a nice round mound that Punter had laid on my bed. You see with all the water around the building there was no place for Punter to go and since he was not potty-trained to use the latrine at home he did his thing right there on the bed. My mom got really angry and scared the hell out of Punter that day. Sure enough after that day Punter never climbed on to a sofa or a bed or a table again.
Here are some snaps of Punter with my niece. Notice the distance between the two. That’s because my niece knows that the moment she gets close to him, he will simply walk away.
The other thing about Punter was the way he liked to be petted. He loved it when someone rubbed his forehead. In fact he liked it so much he would thrust his head against your hand just like how a goat or a sheep does. And if you took away your hand too soon he would grab your hand over his head with his paws and would thrust his head into it till you started rubbing his forehead once again. In fact I had a little game I played with him. I would snap my fingers at a certain height over his head a couple of times. He would stare at it for a moment or two and then just stand on his hind feet, grab my hand with his front paws and the he would put his forehead right into my palm and rub them there. It was really surprising to see a cat going crazy for a some nice little petting.
As I said Punter was unlike any other cat we ever had. And the things that made him special was his soberness, his aloofness and his stoic behaviour like a royal king. He was like Darcy of Pride and Prejudice or like a dark, brooding hero of a movie who just doesn’t like to fuss about anything. He was prim, proper to the point, nothing more and nothing less.
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