Photograph by Koh Terai/The Gazelle

I have an unhealthy obsession with cats. I believe that it was instilled in me by my mother who, like me, is also a cat enthusiast. I would not be lying if I said that she has confessed to loving our pet cats more than me at various points in my life. Over the course of my life, I have had 24 pet cats. Not all at the same time, of course; I do not want to grow up to be a cat lady. I have kept different breeds and types of cats: Tabby cats, Persian cats, Siamese cats, fat cats, round cats, ugly cats and even handicapped cats. But my favorite and most beloved cat was called Chotu.

The name Chotu is derived from the Urdu word chota, which means small. I called him Chotu because he was very small when we took him in. I wasn’t a very innovative child.

As time passed, Chotu grew up and we were always together. He would sleep on my bed and if I accidently pushed him off while I was sleeping, he’d jump right back on. He would stand at the doorstep, waiting for me to come back from school. Chotu and I were inseparable. Until Lolita came along.

Lolita is the name I gave to the neighborhood stray cat. She was a temptress, that one. She would meow near our house a lot. I didn’t think much about it, though, mainly because that’s what cats do, and I had more important things to worry about, like passing my A-levels.

One sunny day while I was procrastinating by watching television, I heard my cat crying from the kitchen. I ran in to find Chotu sitting on the windowsill communicating with Lolita. Both of them turned around and looked at me like I had caught them making plans for world domination.

I wish I had seen the truth then, stopped my cat from hanging out with her and brought him some flowers. I guess nothing I could do would have stopped Chotu from leaving me for another cat. Yes, my beloved Chotu later eloped with Lolita, and this is when I learned an important lesson: never give your heart to a cat.

I didn’t need a cheating cat to teach me this: any sane human being could have imparted upon me this valuable lesson, but it didn’t change the fact that my self-esteem was at an all-time low. A stray cat was picked over me. But in Chotu’s defense, if he could speak human, or  if I could understand cat, he would say to me, “It’s not you, it’s meow.”

This isn’t to say that I have lost faith in all cats. I still love cats. I just learned to love a little less. I don’t want to get my heart broken again.