Sano biralo

When we first moved to Sundrawoti, we quickly learned to fear for the safety of our food. So I suggested the only course of action I hoped would seem reasonable: we needed to get a cat, biralo.

As you might imagine, I had ulterior motives. There aren’t a lot of cats in Sundrawoti, which is puzzling because, really, someone should let them know there’s no shortage of mice.

I spotted one while we tramped around above Mehele for our water project:

I learned that the chow mein passal is home to a particularly unfriendly cat named Happy, and a visiting kitten spent one night trapped beneath a basket outside DBD’s house (I accidentally let him out; Timna helped me put him back inside before anyone noticed).

Suffice to say the situation was so dire that in Bandipur I stooped – literally – to play with three (admittedly cute) puppies:

All that changed a few weeks ago, when one of the passals that is not The Passal turned up a sano biralo (little cat):

Needless to say, my average trip to the Passal grew longer thereafter.

The poor cat has to put up with a lot, for instance a diet of dudh bhat (milk & rice), this:

and this:

I suggested to Tal that I might just take the cat home. He was clearly still thinking of our mice, since he pointed out we’re leaving in a few weeks and can’t really offer a stable home for a pet. I don’t think he quite understood what I meant by ‘home’.