Sleeping with Mummy’s

Chhana Chatterjee's home

When I was a student in Bombay, our home used to have a little visitor from the neighbourhood. Named Shompa, she was 3 months old when her father or mother came to drop her at our place for the whole day, while they went to work. Shopma was an unplanned child and her elder sister was already 10 years when quite by chance, Shopma’s decided to visit planet earth. My aunt, who loved babies, was overjoyed to have Shopma around and I too took much pleasure in this little bundle. One of the things I remember about her is that after her feed, you had to place in her hand, her mother’s handkerchief which turned out to be her ‘security blanket’. As soon as she held it in her little hands, she fell asleep. The procedure was the same, if she cried for some reason – once you placed her ‘security blanket’ in her hand, she became quiet.

Only very recently, I came across another experience with ‘security blanket’ when a tiny little cat, picked up from near the garbage on the road, exhibited similar behavior.

Chhana Chatterjee’s home with his single mother is in the Suburban Bombay. He is the size of a tiny white ball, resembling the Indian dahiwala’s ball of makkhan, which translates like this, for those who do not know the terms, dahiwala – man who sells milk and curd at the local market; makkhan is the equivalent of home-made butter, got from churning milk cream. If that too is too difficult to imagine, then just settle for a very large snow ball, fluffy and soft. Yes, that is Chhana Chatterjee! 

Little ChhanaChaterjee with Otto

Leave that as it may, the cute little story I began to tell you was that little Chhana Chatterjee, sleeps by himself all alone in his basket, because, Otto, the black and white larger cat, you saw in the picture up there, sleeps with his mother on her bed, making noises all night, to wake her up and play. Not a very nice thing to do, because, his mother works all day and needs her sleep in the night, but Otto, who has slept all day, is ready to play at night! And if you are sleeping with Auto’s mother, God save you!

Suddenly in the middle of the night, you might just have a gentle paw spread right across your face, trying to wake you up. Never mind the ill manicured and smelly toes - Psssst! Hope his mother is not reading this – you are most likely to jump out of your skin and not only your bed and let out a sharp loud cry that can split the night air and tear it to fragments. Thank God it is Bombay, you say, where the night never sleeps nor the sound decibel ever gets low.

But, no matter what, Chhana Chatterjee continues to sleep because; he has what Otto does not have. And I will give you a fraction of a second to tell me what it is.

The ‘security blanket’ of course!

Snuggled under the T-Shirt, which has been worn by his mother and therefore has her smell, little Chhana Chatterjee sleeps on. The moment his mother puts the T-shirt over his ‘home’, even if the lights in the room are glaring and can make you blind, for Chhana, it is night! Until the T-shirt is taken off, or rather the ‘security blanket’ removed, Chhana Chatterjee is cozy and fast asleep! In his mind, he is sleeping with Mummy’s.

Just like Shopma with her ‘security blanket’ in my student days in Bombay! Aren't human beings so much like cats?







Acknowledgement - Thank you Debika Chhaterjee for providing the real life photographs

Saving Snoopy

Honeymoon holidays are not always about romance. In fact, quite often it may turn out to be one where you become a mother immediately.

When my partner and I decided to visit the place we wanted to set shop and home, we went to the northeast of India to mix pleasure and business together. It was early March. The wind was strong at that time of the year with occasional rain even. One day, staying over at a family friend’s place, we woke in the night with the sound of a puppy crying. Shivering in the cold, we found a small creature looking like a tennis ball, yelling at the top of her voice. She was cold and miserable and very hungry. She had also lost her mother, because she had been wondering around.

We instantly picked her up and I got busy trying to find her something warm and something to eat or drink. She was a little baby and I was not sure if she would drink anything outside of her mother’s milk. But be that as it may, I quickly warmed up a little milk and fed it to her. She drank up the milk as if she had not eaten in a long time, but within half an hour she also brought it all up. And again began to cry loudly.

I knew my sleep was gone for that night and I would have to hold the baby in my arms till dawn. And it was exactly that. Every time I closed my eyes, she would begin to cry softly gradually progressing to loud yelling. When my eyes were open, she would nap in my arms!

Thus began a story with Snoopy, our little hill dog. The next day, we both went to look for her mother all around the neighbourhood. But, alas, no, we just could not find her. And so, even as the growing romance was sharply interrupted by a baby on hand, I became a mother!

When we, a family of three, settled down in a house, rented out to us, overlooking our shop called “Grub”, we had the most wonderful neighbor called Wilty Aunty and Uncle. They had retired from Kolkata and returned back home to build a lovely English style house with a large garden. Snoopy found her grand parents in them.

Wilty aunty’s daughter lived with her husband and two daughters in Italy and her son, an Air India pilot, lived in Mumbai. The couple had many relatives in the place they settled down in and rarely bothered to busy themselves with the lives of their children. But I heard a lot about them.

Wilty aunty had lost her father early in life and her mother went out to work, leaving her in the care of her pet dog. Indeed, it is the dog that looked after her, while her mother returned every two hours to visit her as a baby in the care of her dog. And so, Wilty aunty knew a ‘dog language’ which Snoopy picked up easily. You should have seen them when Snoopy got a bath in Wilty aunty’s bath tub.

The two would enter a tub that was filled with warm water and Wilty aunty would start to give Snoopy a bath. And the whole bathroom would be splashed with water. There inside would be Wilty aunty struggling with Snoopy and outside, a fully wet Uncle would stand with a stick to scare Snoopy and try to manage her. But, it was useless. Snoopy would jump out of the tub and throw herself on their carpet to wipe herself dry, while there ran a wild couple behind her, trying to throw the towel on her. The loud screams from all quarters nearly brought the house down!

“Be careful,” she warned me, “those boys who live in the rooms below, will kill Snoopy and have a hearty meal. They eat dogs.” Wilty aunty warned.

I could hardly believe what they said, but we all got very cautious thereafter. But Snoopy never became their lunch. Nor her grandparents ever failed to keep a watchful eye over her.

And I continued to be a mother.