Cat People by Devapriya Roy

Author:Devapriya Roy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S India
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

A few years ago, my friend M and I were sitting in one of our favourite cafes in Kolkata, being miserable about life, as one is wont to do in Kolkata. We were talking, among other things, about how difficult it was becoming for us to come back and live with our parents for long stretches after having lived alone. We spoke about the generation gap and the occasional lack of empathy that parents show (and we show too, let’s be honest). What makes living with parents so difficult, I wondered. M had a simple hypothesis, though. ‘We move around too much,’ he said. ‘We don’t have or desire to have the stability that was so essential to their generation. We don’t buy houses, we shift all the time, we change jobs every two years. It’s a different life.’

For years, I have craved adventure. My childhood was as regular as can be expected. I went to school, did reasonably well, then was sent off to a prestigious college in Delhi. Along the way, I made a few friends for life who led the same mundane existence I did. Nothing ever happened to me. Books made me long for more: a life of thrill, of adventure, of unconventionality. Practical considerations like money and property didn’t feature in my plans.

The thing is, as I grow older, I find that the craving for stability is an evolutionary desire that has been imprinted in my brain. Try as I might, I can’t avoid the thought coming up as I pay rent every month or search for the next freelance gig as to how it would be to "settle down". What would it be to not worry about making rent or my landlord finding out that we’re not actually married?

It seems to be a life I could get used to.

I often feel that getting a cat would be a starting point of that stability. It would force me to make a commitment to care, a commitment to protect, a commitment that, at the end of the day, I will come back home. It has to be a cat, though. I’m not yet in that stage where I can deal with too much attachment, too much care, or too much protection. Basically no dogs or babies.

R and I often talk about getting a cat, mostly while scrolling through random cat videos on Instagram. Sometimes when we find a word or a name we like, we try using it as a cat name to see if it’s something we can picture calling out to our cat. We don’t discuss if we will get to carry on in the same house with a pet in tow, whether we have the capacity to take care of an extra living being, or about who will eventually clean the potty. The best thing about imaginary things is that you don’t have to let practicalities restrain you.

And maybe one day we will get a cat—away from the sharp eyes of the building society uncle.

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