In Scientio, Veritas

Today, the 9th of August, marks a year since our Haalubaba—having decided that Being One with the Universe sounded like more fun—shuffled off this mortal coil leaving a Haalu-shaped hole in our heart and soul. He was all of nearly ten and a half in years and twenty in pounds. Yes, he was our big-boned homeboy furbaby with a distinguished embonpoint, weirdly angled hindlegs that gave his stair climbing a 1-2, 1-2 rhythm, and a singlemindedness of purpose which is often considered a hallmark of the firing of the single communal neuron that is famed to be shared amongst all orange cats on the planet.

Our Orangeling, Pudge Clementine Haaluababa, with his glorious embonpoint on display, listening to something or someone with rapt attention

People amongst our family and friends knew him by many names. An orange, domestic shorthair cat with a multilayered, fluffy coat, he was christened Pudge at the shelter in Miami from where he and his older brother Widget were adopted. That name, etched on his microchip, stuck with him through Falls Road Animal Hospital (our vet at that time) and Evergreen Fearfree Clinic (our current vet clinic for many years), at Trupanion (pet insurance), at Petco, Chewy and Covetrus (online pet store and pharmacy) and with our Dr. Barker (our wonderful and sole primary veterinary care for all our furbabies). But he was also Haluwa (to Auntie SKB), Clementine (to Auntie Indy), Gulaal (to Auntie Simu), Haaluprasad Yadav (in his Little Bacchus mode), Haalubaba and Haalumoni (to us, in general reference), Haangumoshai and Haammu (when his Adorability Quotient periodically went through the roof). And these are just samples from the more coherent appellations.

(L) Our Little Bacchus in repose, enjoying the day, taking it all in with the flick of a ail; (R) our venerable library lion hard at work, meditating on empowerment by knowledge

It is said time heals all wounds. Perhaps time will dull the pain of bereavement we have felt every single day of the year past. Even Widget, who has never lived apart from his brother until last year, seems to grieve in his own feline way. But I am more afraid of the other thing time does. Time often robs us of precious memories. We have armed ourselves against that eventuality by surrounding ourselves with visual memorabilia of both Pudge and Widget, photos (and a few sketches) on our walls and the screens of our electronic devices of daily interactions, the mobile phone lock-screens and backgrounds, the computer wallpapers, the TV screensavers. One of our bookshelves is adorned with a small collection of Haalu’s whiskers dropped over the years, the simple black string he loved to play with, a closed wooden box of his cremated remains, and a pawprint on polymer clay that the crematorium collected and sent us. In the past year, both my wife and I have surprised ourselves with the discovery of Olfactory Memory in us; I’m not sure if we are imagining it, but it does feel like we can occasionally still smell the distinct odors of Haalu’s head, the layered fur on his back, and especially his oh-so-soft furry underbelly.

Memorabilia for Haalu on a shelf of our bookcase. A collection of his dropped whiskers to the right, the plate which used to be held below his mouth while he ate his Gerber, his favorite string to play with, the pawprint on a piece of polymer clay and cremated remains in a wooden box with his name emblazoned, and orange marigolds, which always remind us of him and his bright presence in our lives.

But will all that be enough? Who knows what tomorrow will bring, or more precisely, cause us to lose due to, perhaps, brain incapacities due to age and health. After all, none of us are getting any younger.

Anyway, I had promised myself I shall not get all maudlin. Until an aggressive lymphoma grew a tumor on his face and eventually caused his lungs to fail, Haalu has been a happy and curious baby. I am choosing to remember his life in snippets that are etched in my memory.

From the very first few months of their lives, our Widget (“Baaghu” to us) was the more adventurous of the two, first to jump onto countertops and window sills, climb onto dressers and bookshelves, and check out the insides of closets and cupboards. Haalu would typically telescope his neck and watch Widget carefully for about two weeks before attempting any of that derring-do. But as Haalu grew, his gibbous was always waxing, which increased his aerodynamic drag and made his projectile arcs significantly narrower, and so, his spirited jumps would often end with him hanging with both arms, claws out, from the cliff edge of various structures, dressers and bookshelves. In our family, we did not make fun of him, ever, but would rush to support his hindlegs on our palms or shoulders, so that he could do a quick clamber up with his dignity intact.

Haalu, our homebody, had a guard dog pose, sitting near the door as it opened but never venturing out. He did not love the outdoors. When held on our shoulders and taken outside up to our front stairs, just so that he could soak up the sunlight and breathe in some fresh air, Haalu would always resolutely set his sight on the door to the house, with a deep yearning to get back and stay inside writ large on his face. ONCE, early in his lifetime, when we lived in an apartment complex in Baltimore, a months-old Haalu had, unbeknownst to us, shot out through apartment door as it was closing, climbed down a flight of stairs, and was waiting for someone to open the building’s main door for him to escape in the urban wilderness yonder. Thankfully, the person who had opened the door and picked him up happened to work at the apartment office and brought him there. Just as we were about to leave for work, my wife received a call from the office manager and frantically rushed to the apartment office, only to find our Haalubaba situated comfortably in the office room soaking up everyone’s attention. I don’t know if the experience had traumatized him, but that marked Haalubaba’s lifelong self-imposed sayonara to the great outdoors.

(L) Haalubaba in his alert Guard Dog avatar; (R) LOOK AT THAT eminently motorboatable floofy belleh!!

Not particularly nocturnal or crepuscular, Haalu preferred to sleep in our bed under the covers especially during winters. But he was particular about periodically shifting his objet d’affection between my wife and me, choosing to snuggle against one of us at the bed’s edge on either her side or mine. His only demand was two-fold: the cover had to be raised up to create what we called a “tent-city” for him to swoop under, and then his head, back and/or belly had to be gently scratched continuously until he drifted off to sleep. If the roof of the tent city collapsed or the scratchies ceased because we had fallen asleep, he would make his presence felt by digging his nails into whichever soft part of our bodies he had closest to him. Then again, for a few years in between, he had developed this regular habit of solo evening naps. Leaving everyone in the living room, he would 1-2, 1-2 upstairs to the bedroom on his own every day, take a nap on the bed for a few hours, and then come down at dinnertime.

And when he slept, it was magical with his uniform and soothing purrs. The decibel intensity of his purrs was high, in fact so high that early on, I once thought he was suffering from severe breathing difficulty and drove him post haste at 2 a.m. to the Emergency Clinic four miles away at the Falls Road Animal Hospital. I shall never forget either the look on the ER night nurse’s face when, having checked Haalu out, she asked me: “first time cat parent, right? The cat is fine” or the interminable 12 minutes of Drive-of-Shame (more like, embarrassment) on the way back with a now widely awake cat who had no clue why his sound slumber had to be disrupted by his human.

But… y’know what? I’d still do it a thousand times over if ever Haalu needed me. I would love to be able to again motorboat his soft belleh and kiss his head and wet nose and cheeks as he begins to turn his face away with his left lower lip curled down as if in disgust, exposing a single beauty spot there. I’d strain my ears to hear again his various meow intonations, most of which sounded suspiciously like “Ma” with a note of interrogation at the end. I’d plonk my butt on the sofa with my feet up for eternity if it meant Haalu and Baaghu would, as they did, compete with each other to run to the sofa and occupy the leg hammock space that was closer to me. This activity brought out the single-minded focus in Haalu. He had the same look of fierce focus when scratching on specific scratchpads around home with a most earnest posture standing on his two hindlegs.

The competition was always tough but fair; sometimes Haalu and sometimes Baaghu managed to reach their spot of choice first. Neither seemed to hold a grudge.

I could go on and on and on, of course… but I shall spare you. With one final mention. Haalu’s one and only food in life, to which he was dedicated, was the prescription kibbles (hydrolyzed protein + urinary S/O) that was prescribed long ago for Baaghu. He also occasionally liked freeze-dried salmon from one brand and one brand only, but he was finicky about it. Unlike Baaghu, Haalu was NEVER interested in human food, except—as we found out quite by accident—boy! Did he have some suh-weeet tooth, and a very specific one too. He was crazy for milk-and-rice pudding (what we Bengalis call “payesh”) from one Pakistani restaurant on the 26th street, but he couldn’t target his tongue very well. So, we had to scoop the liquid material in a spoon and chase the trajectory of his tongue to hold the spoon, by trial-and-error, right beneath. We also discovered that he similarly We also discovered that he similarly loved the top layer of tres leches cakes from Whole Foods and milk-based, plain-vanilla ice creams. That was the only human food that he deigned to put in his mouth a treat. Of course, in the final several months of his life, when the facial tumor no longer allowed him to chew his kibbles, he survived on Gerber baby food, one whole bottle at a time, fed slowly and gently by my wife. Despite the pain, Haalubaba never complained about any of the inconveniences, including the daily high dose steroid injections that, we had hoped, slowed the progression of the lymphoma.

After months and months of anergy and pain which seemed to sap him of vitality, on the evening of August 8th, he walked upstairs to my home office just as before and jumped straight on to my lap while I was working and lay there silently for about 10–15 minutes staring at my face. Did he know? Did he understand that it was to be his final night with his humans and his brother? Because at some point past midnight, in the early hours of that fateful day, he started audibly gasping for breath because his lungs were shutting down. We knew this day would come, didn’t know when, but we had held this difficult conversation already with Dr. Barker. We were there with Haalu as soon as the doors of Evergreen opened at 8 a.m. The clinical opinion was unambiguous, but the final decision was up to us. We did not want him to writhe in pain and gasp for breath one second more than the circumstances decreed. As my wife held him in her arms one final time wrapped in a towel, we all, including Dr. Barker and the nurse attendant, said our tearful goodbyes, he received the intravenous bolus of some high dose anesthetic that would help him fall asleep peacefully and still his heartbeat.

I wish he had stayed with us a little longer. Memories are but a poor substitute for his oversized presence, but those are all that we have now. At least, he is freed of his pain and suffering. Sleep well, Haammu. Perhaps we shall meet again somewhere in the multiverse. I shall bring payesh, okay?