| All
of these current resident felines were once stray or abandoned
kittens, except Tortilla
(Totti), whose mom
is one of my sister's cats, Popi (which,
herself, was an adopted stray in 1994).
Sebastiano
Doni is also excluded because his mom Tabby and
his dad Dede were mine -- though the similar vein is embedded
herein as well -- I took Dede home one day from a traditional
market where he lived alone as a small kitten barely 4 months
old on trash bins, and Tabby's mother Mia was taken to my place
by S. Teddy D. back in 1997 -- she
was abandoned by the previous owner in a deserted old campus.
Francesco
Coco was catnapped by Tabby from wherever --
she only got one kid, Doni, and perhaps she thought an adopted
brother would be superb to keep him company.
Moby
Amayadori 's story, with his older sister Chelsea
and little sister Zippo,
was the most dramatic and saddest of all.
They
were abandoned right in the street, inside a tied-up
plastic bag, in August 2003 -- the original intention was obviously
to have them run over by the busy traffic.
David Bachem found them on his way back
from work and took them to me.
There
were 4 kittens in the bag.
One
was already dead. Some commuter had done what their previous
owner intended them to do.
The
kittens were already lucky; Indonesian, especially Javanese,
drivers are very superstitious about running cats over -- they
believe that it is a sure way to invite bad driving luck.
So,
to Indonesians, Moby's scheming killer committed a gruesome
social sin by putting them on the way of trucks and buses too
tall to notice the little bag they were in.
Tear-jerking
tales about the cats in my life could have filled up an entire
site, were I to devote a little chunk of a day to devise one.
Dede,
the kitten I found in and snatched from the market's dumpster,
was full of cigarette burns, nondescript scars, and numerous
sorts of wounds. What super-hot water left on him, poured by
food vendors around there, was a whole independent novel if
written of.
The
self-repeating horror never got me immunization; sometimes I
wished I had been numbed.
The
trio of Moby, Chelsea and Zippo couldn't walk when they have
just arrived, their legs were wounded by whatever vehicle it
was that killed their other sibling -- it was a refreshed version
of similar histories I have had the bad luck to encounter.
Chelsea,
Zippo & Moby when they have just arrived,
August 2003 (left),
and Moby in October 2003 (right).
Do you need an oculist to see the difference?
Yet,
I could also see the whole thing from some radically different
points of view.
Like
any other developing countries, Indonesia
is too busy minding unfulfilled basic needs to actually extend
any crumb of attention toward animals -- and last in the list
is pets.
Cows
are alright; they can plow the ricefield.
Horses
are okay, they are to pull carts.
But
cats and dogs and so forth are 'useless' animals; most of the
time they aren't even worth any sum; could be gotten for free
from any spot; keeping pets just for the sake of camaraderie,
for sheer fun, or even just as an inherited habit, is something
of a luxury not everybody is able to enjoy.
You
get some US$ 30.00 (thirty bucks!) paycheque for a month's
work -- what sense could be applied in spending it on cats?
School
teachers, factory workers, lower-middle-ranked civil servants,
all make no more than that to survive. People are still dying
for the lack of medical attention. Not everyone can afford seeing
a doctor when getting unbearably sick -- and even fewer could
tap the resources commonly found in hospitals. There is no such
a thing as an insurance for work-related accidents, in most
places. There is no national health-care program. Your life
is your own to either maintain or lose, not the government's
business -- in this kind of climate, what reason could be forwarded
to justify 'craving' veterinarians?
Those,
and even fatter unsaid wordier reasons, are the answer why average
Indonesians tend to laugh out loud at the 'Northern fuss' around
their pets.
Most
Indonesians equate petting animals with unspeakable fetish.
Clownish, useless, unrespectable, and, most of the time, against
commonsense.
Commonsense
has nothing common in it, as you've already known; it is time-bound,
it doesn't escape geographical clutch. What is supremely normal
in pet-keeping in London, New York, L.A., Berlin and Tokyo could,
and so far have been, seen by a great chunk of the rest of the
world as severely ludicrous.
I
said I could see it their way. I never said I would.
click
the pic to go to Beejay's page at this site
Moby
having supper with
my little sister Beejay
So
--
Though
I'll never pass the American standard for even being a mediocre
pet-owner, I love my cats -- as far as it is sensibly possible,
I'd always try to give them the best. And it goes without saying
that the rest of my days will mean more stray cats, abandoned
kittens, abused felines and so forth. I would even take dogs
in, if I couldn't find homes for them, when they are threatened.
I'm
too sane to contemplate some real campaign for animal rights
in Indonesia. It will never work. Not in this millennium, at
least.
But
I'm definitely against unnecessary harm people make animals
to suffer. Even hopeless poverty cannot pardon such a barbaric
action.
It
makes me happy to see Moby grows into a contented young male
today after the messy start of his life that I perenially hope
would be forever buried and forgotten -- his species, thank
God, allows such an amnesia.
My
attitude towards the cats is, I don't fuss about breeds, I don't
fuss about vets, I don't even fuss about cats -- they
just make a part of my life of any period of time, as friends,
as family.
To
my neighbors around here I am, just for that, a pervert already.
MOBY'S
BIG PIX
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