– Freyan S. Wadia –

“You can tell Hyderabadis are happier than Mumbaikars,” observed Jehaan, as they rode across the Durgam Cheruvu Cable Bridge. “Here, they pull over to take selfies, while Mumbaikars stop on the Sea Link to…”

“Kya mast havaa beh rahi hai,” Ankit interrupted, not having heard a word Jehaan said. “This could have been such a romantic ride.”

“You know, I can still kick you with my good foot,” grumbled an irate Vicky.

Ankit glanced backwards at the compensations for the romance in the air. Jehaan was still marvelling at the hordes taking selfies on the lit-up bridge, and Vicky was holding his head as if it hurt more than his foot. They were riding triple-seat to the hospital with no helmets on. Ankit wove in and out of the traffic like a maniac – a likelier manifestation of recklessness than any real urgency.

“Now why,” said Jehaan, “Does this scene look familiar?”

“Because you’ve only watched one Bollywood movie in the last ten years,” said Ankit.

“If y’all don’t shut up, I’ll bring yet another scene,” Vicky’s eyebrows crossed beneath his turban. “How much do you value your arms?”

It was a few hours before they reached their apartment complex with Vicky’s foot firmly bandaged. “Looks like the power’s out,” observed Jehaan, pressing the lift button to no avail.

“Wonderful. Now how do I climb the stairs?” gasped Vicky.

“It’s okay, Vicky, we’ll bring you a mattress and you can sleep here in the lobby.”

“And we can get you a bowl of milk and a collar with your name on it!”

“Murder is illegal, murder is illegal,” muttered Vicky, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

“The next time you bring a cat in the house…” his soft threat hung in the air.

“It came by itself and again, I wasn’t the idiot who tripped over it,” shrugged Jehaan.

Vicky shook his head, then tried to hop up the first step while clutching the banister, nearly falling over.

“I have a better idea,” announced Ankit.

“Whatever it is, no.”

“Sit down here,” he pointed at the step.

“Are you mad?”

“Do you want to sprain your other foot also?”

It was a moment before Vicky’s burly frame capitulated to the indignity of sitting on the step.

“Now push yourself up each step,” said Ankit brightly.

“Up four floors?”

“You can do it with or without listening to Jehaan explain… ay, what was the last thing you were reading?”

“The Communist Manifesto, do you want to…”

“No-no-no-no-no-no-no” Vicky raised his hands in surrender. “Please shoot me instead!”

But it was too late. Jehaan had already launched into a tirade.

“…while the upliftment of the proletariat seems commendable, the absolute power communism lends to the state is dangerous…”

“What have you done!” hissed Vicky at Ankit.

“Making you hurry up. Now move, I want to watch Netflix!”

“…capitalism and communism are both argued to conclude in anarchy…”

Vicky pulled his turban over his ears and sighed as he scooted up each step. He was trying to forget that, in perfect shape, he could take four steps at a time as well as outrun a critique on Marxist theories.

“Why do you care?” he cut in when Jehaan decided to break for air.

“I… don’t. I just want to know,” he shrugged.

“Can’t you talk about something nice?”

“Like what?”

“Anything but this… this whatever!”

“Hm, let me see, would you rather hear about Shakespeare or the plague?”

Vicky held his head, “Haye Rabba, I give up!”

It was safe to say that Vicky did not take well to enforced bed rest. Vicky, who ran six times around the block before work and went to the gym after, was trapped in a lousy 2 BHK with the embodiments of Loki and Hermione Granger. He found the middle pages missing when reading the newspapers in the morning.

“Oh, you actually read the thing?” Ankit’s flippancy was remarkable. “I used it to wrap my slippers. Read yesterday’s instead, na?”

Then he found himself jolted awake by Jehaan’s late-night epiphanies.

“I figured out why Chandigarh is the capital of Punjab!”

“…?”

“Because it used to be Lahore before the Partition!”

It had taken a lot of effort not to smother Jehaan with a pillow right then.

But when they both left for work, leaving behind an unnatural stillness, Vicky began to feel restless. At 5:00pm, he shut his laptop with an air of finality and looked about. The room looked like Hurricane Katrina and the hydrogen bomb had engaged in a romantic tryst. The floor and furniture disappeared under books, wrappers, clothes and cables with the ends chewed off. Chewed up ends? Why were the wires chewed up? Surely Jehaan had not graduated from the back of pencils?

To answer his question, there came a small mew from the window.

“You!” glared Vicky at the intruder.

The small black cat stared blankly at him as if to say, “Yes, who else?”

He stared back at the creature, then realised he didn’t care. He held still, listening for any signs of his room-mates’ return. Sure they weren’t there, he hobbled to his cupboard, reached behind all the neatly folded clothes on the lowest shelf and removed a box.

Still alert, he ambled towards his chair. The silence continued its reign and he opened the box and removed a ball of yarn. He threaded the yellow wool onto the knitting needles, a small frown on his face as he searched around the room. His eyes settled on the cat, who was batting the wires like they were snakes. There was a lukewarm smile as the needles began to clack together, clumsily at first, but then picking up speed.

“I haven’t practised in a long time,” explained Vicky. “But I still remember.”

He paused. Had he just been talking to the cat? Even she looked up from her wires, giving him one of her most judgemental expressions.

“I know, this is something Jehaan would do,” Vicky continued, his focus returning to the needles. “Talking to a cat – not knitting. He’d poke himself in the eye.”

The cat stared at him as if to say “Okay, whatever, who cares?” and decided to attack Ankit’s T-shirt emblazoned with Light Yagami.

Vicky watched her for a couple of seconds, then smiled. “At least you have some taste. Maybe we’ll get along fine.”

Almost three weeks later, Vicky’s ankle had healed almost fully. He still worked from home to avoid exertion, but mostly looked forward to his knitting sessions.

“Naani taught me,” he told the cat he lovingly nicknamed Koyla. “It would calm her down. Her, and now me.”

Remembering his maternal grandmother made Vicky smile. That Koyla jumped on his lap made it even broader!

“What, you want food, ha?” he scratched her behind the ears. “What will you eat?”

It was not surprising that Koyla grew fatter and healthier, having wrapped two of three inhabitants around her paw. Ankit still resisted her advances though. What was surprising was, one fine day, she went missing. Jehaan and Vicky looked everywhere – in the house, in the streets, almost turning Kondapur inside out!

“Where did that cat go?” Vicky muttered, wiping his forehead with a shirt sleeve.

Jehaan said nothing, his expression grave. Experience had taught him missing strays remained so, or if found, not in a state you wanted to see.

But Vicky had never loved a stray cat before. He was still clinging to hope, despite the sky clouding over quickly.

“I even made – I mean, I even got her a blanket.”

“I’m sorry,” Jehaan consoled him and they turned to walk home in silence and rain.

They were in the middle of dinner when Ankit barged into the flat, soaking wet holding something black, drenched and shivering, by the scruff of its neck.

“Frickin’ wildcat,” he spat out. “I save you and you scratch me, huh?”

But no one was listening to him. The army brat in Vicky surfaced as he barked for a box and dry fabric to line it with.

“Hey, that’s my Light Yagami shirt!”

“Stop whining and get a new one.”

Vicky fashioned a bed for Koyla while Jehaan dried her down.

“I don’t think she’s well.”

“I know. Google the nearest vet, call them and see if they’re open.”

The light of their beat-up scooter cut through the night and the rain as it slalomed through the traffic. Vicky was at its helm, Jehaan clutched Koyla’s cardboard box, Ankit clinging on at the end.

“Now, why does this scene look familiar?!”