A letter from Mr. Brown

Hi Guys ,

Good morning !

I am Mr. Brown. I am a stray kitten living in the garage of Surekha. Infact I am a three months old young adult , I don’t mind if you call me Master Brown. But soon I am going to grow up and become Mr. Brown. We are a family of six, my four siblings and my Mom. We are two brown striped brothers and three pale white sisters. Our mom is a mighty and ferocious cat, Nikki. Her looks and stride remind us of our great lineage of Big cats in the wild.

Nikki gave birth to us in the backyard of Joshy aunty hidden inside a broken old bamboo basket. We were so so meek and unable even to walk, we couldn’t open our eyes for two days. Nikki kept sitting near us without moving an inch like a fierce tigress. She was scared of our dad the brown Tom cat who was prowling in the vicinity. He was so rough and uncultured, that he could even snatch one of us for a meal.  As soon we stood up we were so hungry and irritated. We mewooed on top of our voice nonstop even after a good feed.  Nikki was too tired of this entire mess and she slept near us. We wobbled around her and kept on crying.

Surekha who lived in the neighboring house , heard our cries, looked out from her veranda, and found us under the basket. She was too excited and called her daughter Sharu also to see us. Sharu was so excited to see us too. She went back to her work , while Surekha stood there pondering.

 she brought a black plastic bowl full of warm milk and kept it near the fence. The fragrance of the milk was so welcoming, we couldn’t control ourselves. First I crawled myself through the grilled fence to  the other side , my siblings followed. We finished the milk in no time while Nikki kept on watching us. She was too tired get up from her place even though she too was hungry.

 We became regular visitors to Surekha’s house. She regularly kept milk for us in the parking now. Nikki also had share from our bowl but she waited for us to fill our tummies first.

Soon our bowl contained bread, and rotis and curries. It wasn’t very tasty, but we were too hungry to reject it. We would holler around Surekha whenever she stepped out of her house and came to the parking.  She didn’t like our impatience and kept on shouting at us and shooing us away. One day I couldn’t help my wonder and I tried to nibble at a brown glistening nail polish on her toes.

She screamed and stepped back yelling,

” You crazy kittens, I am not going to pamper you. ” 

 I don’t understand why she screams so much!  Probably life experiences hardened her just like our Nikki. But one day when we were just one week old and started crawling, a black crow tried to grab my neck. I howled in pain and fear. Surekha heard me and came running. It was her loud screams that saved me from the devil that day. I feel grateful to her.

Now we are grown-ups and handsome young adults. We roam around freely in all the neighborhoods. But our favorite hangout is Surekha’s parking lot.  Occasionally she brings whole fish so that she can feed us the heads and tails. We cherish it.  One day she was out for the entire day. She came back in the evening and sat on the swing talking to her friend on the fone  . Seeing her we came rushing and started huddling around her feet and Husky even tried to  give her toe a small bite. They were discussing about something called ‘’Meditation’’.

I thought,

 You fool , you better do it. We cats do it all the time. Unlike you, there are some wise men who call us ‘’Zen Masters ’’ .

Ok guys. That’s all for today. Time to go for the rounds.

Sending love from all us.

Xo xo

( Mr. Brown, Husky, Sara, Lila, and Mint )

Photo Credit : Pixabay from Pexels.com

Thank you dear friends for reading my first fiction. My heartfelt gratitude to our Dear Editor Medha Shri for holding our hands and making us write. Love !