“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” —Albert Schweitzer

It’s been almost a year that I adopted my very first fur-kid. She was a cute three-month-old, pure white kitten with one green and one blue eye. She settled well and very soon had trained us in the fine art of taking care of a cat. We named her Snow Belle.

Our second kitten was Blackie. With a Persian father and a Siamese mom, she behaved like royalty. Very gentle and loving, quite a contrast to Snow who had a street cat for a father. Ellie, our pure pointed face Siamese kitten came next. With typical brown ears, tail and sock-like brown paws, she is the most cunning of the lot.

One fine day, I received a call from my vet, who wanted me to adopt two male, ash gray Persian kittens. Reason: they’d been unceremoniously dumped at his clinic as they suffered from a variety of curable ailments. Much to the chagrin of my husband, I brought them home and nursed them to health over the next two months. Of course, being a doctor also helped immensely. One was named Tommy and the other Fur Ball.

On a particularly cold, wintry night, a friend dropped in from Ukraine with a gift. It was a nine-month old Persian male cat, almost 2.5 times bigger than my cats with a three-inch long fur coat. We named him Tobias Czar after his Russian connection, shortened Toby.

Cats are fiercely independent creatures. They require a lot of time and patience on the owner’s part to adjust. Each day brings new situations to be handled and resolved, especially more so in a multi-cat household.

Waking up even before the crack of dawn, they make a beeline for me. Even if I have left out dishes of cat food for them, they want me to get up and present it to them all.

Do cats come with an inbuilt time clock? I certainly feel so; Toby and Fur Ball have an uncanny sense of when the kids leave for school and when we all come back. They sit and watch me getting ready for work and then do a cool cat walk into the play room as if to say ‘phew, now we can finally sleep’.

Ellie’s philosophy of life is simple: If you can’t get your way, lie across the keyboard till you do. She is the one who will be found sitting on top of the kitchen cabinets, surveying the masses.

If Snow Belle was to write a diary it would be something like this: “Slept all day so I could annoy my captors when they sleep. How rude of them to dine on yummy meats while I get dry cereal? Tomorrow, as revenge, I shall eat another house plant, ha-ha!”

Tommy is really big on massages. He wants one all the time that he is awake. Lazy to his last tail bone, he will come and lay his chin on wherever your toes happen to be and then, if one does not take the hint, will rub his furry head. The best part comes when he actually moves his head to get a rub where he wants it most.

All my cats are intelligent creatures, and they have trained us well. Cats know that humans need to know the basic rules and can be taught if they start early and are consistent.

A smooth running home that revolves around it is the cat’s ultimate desire.

My cats love to play It. Early in the morning, one cat, by mutual consent becomes It and chases after the rest (or is it the other way around? I can never tell!). This may continue on till I firmly yell a NO. This is their signal to look cute and purr or go and hide behind a piece of furniture, taking hesitant peeks.

Toby loves to play with a paper ball and has started responding to catch and fetch. He runs after the scrunched up paper, picks it up and on ‘fetch’ makes a half-hearted attempt to bring it back. Then drops it on the floor and promptly sprawls right next to it as if to say ‘you do it yourself’. Trust me, even ten minutes of this charade is good exercise.

Being sensitive creatures, cats can easily judge a negative mood in the house. They become timid and wary, and then come and purr to show affection. Many a time, this alone is enough to lift a bit of negativity.

Keeping cats involves a lot of yucky work, like cleaning litter. But the best thing is that they bring discipline in your life and make you appreciate a full night’s sleep.