My Cat Mooney Mau -by Mimi Babi

 If  I was Mooney Mau, I would say life was pretty exciting.

Mooney Mau  was my cat, but Mau was not only a cat, we shared our emotions like brother and sister, played and had fun all day long.

          I first found Mau 3 years back. I live in an apartment block with my Mom and Dad,  but usually hang out at my friend's and neighbors place. Mau was actually accidentally  found by a friend of mine. Our building has a lift (which is usually stuck on the topmost floor). So one day a cat crept in and gave birth to a litter of kittens. That was the beginning of   Mooney Mau's life.

         The three little kittens would spend their days in the deep, dark pit while the mother would hunt for food. Finally, one of my friends heard them mewing one day.  And then of course there was the usual hustle & bustle for who would go down and retrieve the little ones. The mother disappeared after a few days and the kittens were left alone. So, we asked the watchman to suspend the lift on the top floor while one of us went down the pit to rescue them. We did so and that was how Mooney Mau came to live with me.

       For the first few days at home, Mau would go around smelling each and every nook and corner of our house. (His name was kept by a few of my friends!:-) He was just a few weeks old or so at the time,  but was quite healthy. At first, my mother(who prefers dogs to cats) was quite hesitant to allow me to keep Mau, but my friends (bless them) and I managed to convince her. Mau fed on milk till he grew his teeth ( of which most of  the people around here get unnecessarily scared of!) Soon he started eating meat and fish and other stuff. Mau developed an unlikely taste for wheat-prepared items, and his favorite dish turned out to be corn! (Even now the both of us fight for it.)

     His other likings (apart from food) were sleep, sleep, and even more sleep...! He was a really lazy cat when he wanted to, but was otherwise quite frisky when he's in the mood. Especially when he'd had a good meal and there were a lot of people in the house.

    Even as Mau grew up, he never had any 'problems' as one might say. He was quite a spoilt cat!(But not so very much). My cousin who would often go to the USA would always get some cute stuff for Mau. Soon, he had his own cute feeding dish, a squeaky mouse stuffed with 'catnip' (which he adores), and his own little bed. He also got lots of packets of  cat food (yum-yum) which lasted weeks and really spoilt him. But, Mau sure got plenty of exercise being chased out  of the house by my mother when she cooked our meals!

    Mau became quite a hunter when he grew into a 'teenager'. For a cat that is pretty soon as they do not have life spans as long as humans.(Nor do they have "NINE LIVES", that is just a saying which means cats are difficult to kill..) Mau's new hunting character turned out to be a blessing and a curse at the same time. The advantage being that we  didn't always have to feed him, since he caught his own prey. But it can be quite disgusting when you open your front door
 to find a bird's bloody head or a torn lizard's leg on the doormat, which is precisely what he did! (A few times he even dragged the leftovers to my mom's room. And you can just imagine her reaction!)

    As Mau grew up he turned out to be a pretty good 'watch-cat' for us, people usually freaked out seeing Mau pacing up and  down outside our front door .He usually did that mewing to be let into the house.

    Oh! I completely forgot to mention his looks. Mau actually grew up to be quite a handsome cat (uh-huh). He sometimes  sat on the window-sill waiting to spot his girlfriend(s)!  He was a also a very sly 'bird-watcher'.  His handsome white & black, sort of tabby coat blended perfectly with his surroundings, so he was able to catch the birds  easily by fooling them. He would crouch down into his 'attack' position, spying on the poor unwary bird, and then pounce on it,
and that's the end of the poor bird. It's fun to watch him though.

    Mau has always been close to Dad. Each time Dad returned, Mau would run up to him and nuzzle against his legs and go  'purr, purr', almost tripping him! the moment Dad removed his shirt Mau would pounce on it and go totally ecstatic smelling  it and nuzzling it. He loved the smell of Abba's sweat. Mau almost tore up one of Dad's shirt's one day doing that!

   It was quite nice having Mau live with me. He had a sort of sixth sense through which he knew exactly when I returned home from school or whatever, so he would sit waiting near the front door till I petted him. He always knew when we were about to go out leaving him alone, so he would sit sulking in one corner or
 attack everyone's heels till someone comforted him(spoilt kitty!!) and the one he surely knew was his feeding time!

The moment the fridge was opened to get out the meat or fish, he would come running from wherever he had been sleeping  and come mewing near the fridge.
Mau has had his painful moments too. When he became old enough to venture out on his own, he did just that for long periods  of time(during which I missed him a lot, but he usually returned on my call). On these trips outside, Mau made quite a lot of  friends  as well as enemies. Often he would be seen with all those cats in our neighbors'  backyard, his tabby coat most prominent
among those other mangy cats.

    Among all his cat-friends, one turned hostile and late at night Mau & that cat could be heard yowling & fighting over various   cat topics. Mau often sustained severe injuries from those fights and I had to keep taking him to the vet for check-ups, Mau had not learnt how to fight having grown up in our safe & secure household, but it was necessary for him to learn. So, Dad started
giving Mau "fighting lessons" by wearing thick protective gloves (his teeth were quite sharp by then) and attacking him till he  fought back.

    When Mau first grew his sharp teeth & claws, most people were afraid of him (so were my friends!).but later they got quite  fond of him. Most charming were Mau's eyes. They were grayish-blue in dim lights with wide black pupils and bright green with slits for pupils in bright sunlight. Beautiful!

     Mau always was very active even though he ate sooo much! (Mom always called him a 'bottomless' pit) Mau particularly loved strings and rope-like things. But his favorite plaything (and sometimes food item) were - cockroaches!!! he would go from room to room chasing them and pawing them till the poor creatures died. Then he would eat them if he was in the mood. Mau also loved playing with balls! His favorite was a yellow soft-ball.

     Mau was also quite a dramatist! He would curl up into a ball and look at us pitifully until one of us covered him up. His postures were pretty cute to watch, especially when he got up from a nap and stretched.(his naps were quite long, cats can sleep up to 13 hours a day...lazy creatures!) when Mau got lazy he would go downstairs and roll in the sand. Sometimes he would sit & watch the birds, twitching his ears in eager anticipation.

    Mau loved 'gallivanting' around at night(as Mom said) he could see much better at night so he slept in the day & roamed at night, 'marking his territory'   and challenging the other cats to enter his personal domain. These nighttime journeys took place every night and every morning Mau would come and meow outside our door waiting to be let in. One night he never came back.

He didn't meow to be let in at dawn. He didn't wait outside. He just vanished from our neighborhood, from my house. But he didn't vanish from my heart. I'm still waiting for the day he returns and meows once again to be let in. Still waiting just as he used to, still praying, still hoping for the slightest chance that he will return- my cat Mooney Mau.

© Maujiza 'Mimi'  Babi