KARACHI: Surrounded by apartment blocks, Mehmood Ghaznavi Park in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block-16 is a pleasant place though slightly more curious than regular parks. Right next to its boundary walls, a middle-aged lady feeds dozens of stray cats everyday. She has been doing that for the past 17 years – without fail.

Being a permanent fixture in the neighbourhood, everyone in the area knows her. A couple of youngsters were excited to recount that they have been seeing her feeding the cats for as long as they can remember. “The amazing thing is that it has never happened that she hasn’t fed the cats,” one of the guys said. His friend right next to him laughed at how he gets a scolding from the lady every time he walks by too close to the cats.

A chowkidar from one of the houses said he was the third person from his family to work there, and that the previous two members of his family also told him about the cat lady.

The lady gives food to the cats right after sunset. The cats know the routine and by the time the sun starts to go down, they begin to gather on the footpath adjacent to the park’s wall opposite to the lady’s house. There are normally three dozen cats and five bags of meat are needed to feed them all.

Everyone has their own story about why she does this. One of the neighbours said: “She doesn’t like people.” The chowkidar said: “She loves cats more than her own children.” But the lady told told Dawn that she couldn’t bear to see the cats go hungry. All those years ago, she found a hungry cat on the street outside her house. She fed it, and never stopped since. And the cats didn’t stop either. She must have fed thousands of cats over the period of time.

She has never skipped a day. Her dedication is such that she didn’t even go for Hajj or Umrah. “I don’t go, I don’t,” she stated sternly. The only time she wasn’t able to attend to the cats was when she broke her leg once and was unable to move. But even then, she made sure to arrange for someone to come and feed the cats while she recovered.

She isn’t young and walks with a stick, and she admitted that she is now exhausted after doing this for years. It seems like what was once a genuinely heartfelt thing to do has now become hard labour. She confessed that if other people start to take care of the cats, she would stop doing it herself.

But it’s not common for anyone to pet these many animals and it’s not for sure if anyone in her area would be so keen on doing so. She didn’t seem to have good relations with her neighbours either. She said many scorned her, though sometimes she did hear nice things as well about herself from people.

The day when she stops, the cats, and maybe even the neighbours, would miss her.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2016