April 10th – a hot Saturday afternoon, I get a frantic call from a lady who tells me “Priya the mother cat just died…. She was hit by a car, came running into the building in shock and is now dead”

I was at the shelter the same day, at the moment this lady called busy scuttling around with another emergency, where one of our shelter cats was very ill and hanging between life and death.. and here on the other hand ….. I was terribly sad to hear the mother of the 2 kittens had died and what would these month old kittens do without their Mom..

I needed sometime to think where to relocate them, as here hardly anyone adopts kittens or frankly even cares about them. They were used to their mother teaching them all the lessons of growing up, a thing which only the very few lucky kittens experience if they are not separated from their mother within a few days after being born

By Monday morning, I had managed to get them to be sent to the shelter in Pune, where they would be cared for, would get food, and possibly would have a better chance at getting adopted ….A friend of mine was travelling to that shelter the next day and so the kittens were sent on Tuesday

Monday evening, I rushed after work to suburban Bombay, to pick up these kittens who were running helter-skelter around in the building frightened of the many children who found amusement in the kittens. Still more shocking was to see them each time scurry and run into a very narrow and long drainage water pipe in the building … with no other outlet in the building ..

As saw them running in and out of the pipe, I immediately called and picked the kittens and left from there

On Tuesday morning, these kittens were sent to Pune. It is sad they lost their mother, their only and their best teacher… but they will now be safe and will be cared for till they get adopted or as long as they live

Written by
Priya Shindurnikar