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February 28, 2006

An Unexpected Member in the Family

Filed under: People,Photography — Singari Vijay @ 9:29 pm

Darling Kittaya

During last March, on one of those bitter cold snowy days, a strange cat walked into our kitchen. Though it was very dirty, it wasn’t a usual cat. It had a lot of hair and beautiful long tail. Our neighbor has two cats, but this wasn’t one of those. We thought it was somebody’s cat in the neighborhood, who didn’t take good care of it. It looked around for a minute and went away. Couple of days later it appeared again. It looked like it was looking for something. We again thought that it was somebody’s cat in the neighborhood and we didn’t pay much attention to it. Truthfully, we wanted to send it out of our house.

After another few days, he appeared again on our deck and he had a wound on his tail. Then, we learned some details about him from the kids next-door. They told us that he was an abandoned cat and our neighbor, Lina (who already had two cats) had been taking care of him for a couple of days. We felt sorry that he was wounded, but we didn’t pay much attention to him even at that time. We didn’t pay much attention to him, but he started paying attention to us. He kept coming back to our house everyday. The other two cats of our neighbor never entered our house, though they came sat on our deck sometimes. But, this one would come in and walk around the house, would come to us and would look in the eyes. He made us notice him with his beautiful looks. He was a young cat, may be 4 or 5 months old.

The wound he had on his tail gotten worse. He was with Lina, the neighbor, at that time. She took him to the vet and had a bandage put on his tail. Few days had passed. By this time he was living between our house and our neighbor’s house. He was spending couple of days here and couple of days there. We were applying the ointment and changing the dressing on his tail regularly, but it didn’t help much. The wound didn’t heal and he had lost all the hair on his tail. But he was happy. He was very playful and was engaging us a lot with his acts. Lina took him to the vet and he suggested using the medicine for few more days. He also said that if it wouldn’t improve we would have to remove his tail. We waited few more days, the situation did not get better and the wound was spreading up the tail to the body.

One day, Lina said she was going to take him to the vet to get him examined again. That was early spring, sunny clear afternoon. We were waiting for her to come back from the vet. We saw her parking her car and I went to her. Her looks were sad. She said “guess what happened”. I didn’t say anything. She said “he had his tail removed” and I could see tears in her eyes. She took him out of the basket and I can never forget his looks at that time. Poor kitty was crying just like how we’d do and was moaning from pain. He had such a gorgeous, long tail and all of it was amputated except one and half inches tail with a bandage around. He had about one and half foot long tail before. He was so cute and playful. We were very sad to see him crying like that. Lina had him in her house for about a week. He didn’t eat or play well. He was just lying quiet. Slowly he recovered and came back to his full energy.

We knew that Lina was going through some tough times and we offered her to pay for all the vet’s expenses. We didn’t think that it was an expense; we just wanted to do it.

This is how it all started and once he recovered, he was spending more time in our house. He is the little prince in our house, unlike Lina’s where he had to compete with two other cats for attention. Lina also understood that we liked him a lot and offered us to adopt him. We wouldn’t have gotten him if it wasn’t for Lina. She also taught us how to take care of this beautiful, playful, little darling. We always thank her for all her help.

Lot of things have happened during the past one year. Now we understand each other’s language. He mews differently for different reasons. I can now understand whether he is asking for more food or for going out or for playing with him. He is also the same way. He can understand whether we are talking about him or talking to him. Which means the communication gap is not there any more between us. More than anything, we love him dearly and he is now a part of the family.

Kittaya on the Deck

Kittaya Ready to Pounce

Kittaya in Evening Light

Kittaya in Deep Sleep

18 Comments »

  1. Hi Vijay! Very touching moment you got there. So many good days for that little kitty (Kittaya) from now onwards after reaching into the hands of nice people like you. Hope you have good time alltogether. My goodness he looks adorable in all the pictures.

    Comment by Bharghavi — March 1, 2006 @ 3:42 pm

  2. Hello Bhargavi garu: Thanks for your comments. Kittaya is very intelligent, lively and lovely.

    Comment by Vijay — March 2, 2006 @ 10:24 pm

  3. Vijay,
    Nice pictures.I am glad to see your kitty’s pictures.
    Talk to you sometime this weekend.
    Raghu

    Comment by Raghu — March 3, 2006 @ 11:10 am

  4. Kittaya is lucky to have a nice home now. And iam sure u guys must be having lots of fun with him around.He is so adorable! the pictures are lovely especially the 4th one.

    Comment by priya — March 3, 2006 @ 6:06 pm

  5. I have similar story, She was mom cat, had 4 kittens , I had to find home for them as I already had 2 cats. Then she needed to be fixed as all tom cat in neighbourhood were after her again and she would come running to us for protection. Then she fall very sick was taken to emergency, stayed at vet for weeks, had to hand feed her for several days at home and has fully recovered now with lots of love and care. I think she had vestibular. she is my darling . I love her and would have done anything for that sweet face.

    Comment by Gauri — March 23, 2006 @ 8:24 am

  6. Hi,

    Kittaya is lovely. I found the story behind his adoption very moving.
    Kittaya is very lucky to find you people and I am sure you all will gain many happy moments from his company.

    Monika

    Comment by monika — May 1, 2006 @ 11:16 am

  7. I am familiar with your cat from the pictures in the Mahanandi blog, but I discovered his story only after I clicked on the hot-air balloon picture at Mahanandi. Well, he is lucky to have found a caring person like Lina, and then such a nice family. He’s obviously well looked after! And tail or no tail, he looks 100% gorgeous!

    Comment by Uma — July 24, 2006 @ 5:45 am

  8. Such an adorable cat, amazingly handsome!!!

    Comment by jaan — August 23, 2006 @ 2:53 am

  9. Very cute cat! I am very much moved with his story. I am a animal lover and love cat alot, used to have so many of them. Whichever homeless cat comes to my house i used to start feeding it and it multiplied. Good that he’s got a safe place to stay despite going thru so much of pain.

    Comment by nia — September 22, 2006 @ 7:28 pm

  10. By the way …what camera you are using. The photos are of good quality. Keep up the good work.

    Comment by rb — September 28, 2006 @ 11:53 am

  11. kittaya is beautiful. we have a cat too, his name is buttons and he’s a domestic short hair. a friend found him outside out apartment and he’s been with us ever since. he turns four in a month’s time.

    Comment by jacob — March 1, 2007 @ 9:09 am

  12. Vijay ji,

    Came here from Indira ji’s blog. Wonderful backstory for Kittaya…..it misted my eyes. he’s such a darling. i am glad he found you both…..

    Comment by musical — March 12, 2007 @ 3:31 pm

  13. The pictures of the cat seems to show that he is very comfortable with you. Being with your pet is the best companionship, I am glad that you made Kittaya a member of your family.

    Comment by Chitra — May 16, 2007 @ 3:48 am

  14. I looked at Kittaya the mahanandi blog but have only today read his story and feel very touched. I have 2 cats as well both rescued and love to bits.
    Kittaya adopted you as he knew he had found his loving forever home with you both.

    Comment by Ranjan — October 4, 2007 @ 6:22 am

  15. Your pet is really adorable. whenever i visit your site, I make it a point to see ur Kittaya. I loved looking at its pictures. Only today I got the chance to read about him. Sorry about his tail. I love cats too. I once had 2 cats back in India. I love ur site.

    Comment by Sai Geetha — December 17, 2010 @ 5:03 pm

  16. Hi,
    The cat episode is really very nice. The narration is excellent. Just by reading this, I imagined it in such a way that i witnessed the entire episode live. Thanks a lot for this. In the same way why cant you narrate your childhood days in the Rayalaseema area. If possible please have a think on that as well, if possible in (y)our native Rayalaseema Accent. I am sure it will be fantastic. If it is already done please let me know @ surabhi.sunilkumar@gmail.

    Regards
    Sunil Kumar Surabhi

    Comment by Sunil Kumar Surabhi — December 22, 2010 @ 9:12 pm

  17. Cock and balls

    Comment by Pinare — April 4, 2021 @ 5:49 pm

  18. agario Me too. I’m from İstanbul. Where are you from?

    Comment by agar.io — August 9, 2022 @ 9:14 pm

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