Once upon a time, long long back, there lived one Mrs.Cattie Black,who,with jet black skin and nimble feet, was the toast of the town and was the best rat-catching cat that ever lived. She would stealthily melt into the darkness and pounce on the unsuspecting rats, catching them off guard and would bilch away fish with consummate ease, from kitchens where they were either cooked or kept aside to be washed. Never was she caught, and there wasn't a single family who wasn't jealous of the fleet-footed Cattie and her never-hungry kittens.
But Cattie was always unhappy, always jealous of the colorful feathers of Mrs.Bluey Feathers, the peacock and of the dazzling green skin of Miss.Greenie RedBeak, the parrot; both of whom stayed on the same street. She would always despair of looking at her pitch black skin in the mirror, sighing and wondering how she could ever get herself to be as beautiful as they were.
Once she had stolen enough fish from a nearby courtyard at night and had kept them aside for the next day, when she spotted the goldsmith walking across the street. She tiptoed upto him, taking half the fish with her, and placed them at his feet.
"I am so sad.. ", she whined.
"Why should you be sad, Cattie?", asked the goldsmith. "Don't you have more fish and rat meat than any other cat in the town?".
"Yes", Cattie was still whining.
"Then what is the problem?".
"I am ugly. I want to be pretty. Pretty like Bluey, pretty like Greenie ". She muttered, gazing despondently at her black feet and claws.
"You are perfectly fine, Cattie", pacified the goldsmith,"You can so easily blend into the dark with your dark skins, and you and your kittens would never starve."
Cattie would have none of it. She badly wanted to look pretty, and she had already thought of how she'd go about it.
"I need a golden nose-ring,with a bright diamond on it", ordered Cattie.
The goldsmith found the idea of a cat wearing a nose-ring quite strange and tried to dissuade her. But Cattie had already made up her mind and wouldn't let anyone drive sense into her head. Within a few days, Cattie had got her nose-ring,and she would strut around flaunting it, evoking gasps and looks of astonishment from Bluey, Greenie and all others on the street. For days on end, Cattie sat in front of the mirror - her narcissistic senses stroked awake by the shimmer of the sun on the diamond - admiring her own beauty, blissfully unaware of the approaching winter and the diminishing stock of food at her disposal.
And then, one fine evening, winter had set in and there was no food anymore with Cattie. She had still not had enough of admiring herself in the mirror, but the hunger, incessantly gnawing away at her and her kittens' intestines, forced her out to brave the biting cold. She was rusty, her feet not moving as nimbly as they did, thanks to all the days spent in front of the mirror. Yet she ran, with all her might, trying to pounce upon the rats, who now found it ridiculously easy to outwit their nemesis, the glint of moonlight on the diamond ring visible from a mile away.
Cattie couldn't fathom how the rats managed to spot her from so far. Undeterred by the unexpected reverse, she turned her attention to the kitchens of the houses nearby. She had gone no farther than the kitchen window sill when a blow struck. A stick landed right on her back, then on her legs and within minutes she was beaten black and blue by the townfolks.
She ran back wailing and was soon licking her wounds, staring at the reflection of her and her bloodied diamond-affixed nose in the mirror, remembering the words of the goldsmith. Her once coveted possession, the diamond studded nose-ring was her bane now. Smarting from the wounds and her hungry stomach, she set out in search of the goldsmith to get the ring off her face. But the goldsmith was nowhere to be found. He had left the town and a distraught Cattie was left with no option but to wail and curse her fate. Body aching from the beatings and the diamond-ring soiled, she trudged back home inconsolable, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
We still hear her in the streets and the alleys, wondering how she would feed her kittens again, how she would ever get the nose-ring off, crying and crying, desolate and inconsolable - "Meoow!!!! Meoow!!! Meoow!!"
Thanks to :
Chunakkara Ramankutty,malayalam film lyricist,whose one creation served as the inspiration for the above post.
Krupa,for finetuning the post, adding appropriate punctuations and correcting errors induced by late night sleepiness and my inherent carelessness.
