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Monday 30 May 2011

Catty Tales


Catty tales


Catty Tales
Catty Tales
by Punam Khaira Sidhu
OUR training hall could accommodate 50 participants. But we had visiting officer trainees who wanted to sit in on a lecture by a former Chief Information Commissioner. All was fine, with the capacity audience of 65, until the speaker took the mike. Then, the electricity went off and in the pitch darkness of the hall, without the hum of airconditioning, we heard the mewing of cats. While we waited for the electricity to be restored, an angry cat descended from the false ceiling and prowled ferociously. “Can I have a candle,” said our unflustered speaker, “so that everyone can see my face, and then I can get on”.
After the candle-lit lecture on the RTI Act got under way we decided to tackle the threat to the health and safety of the participants. From BSNL’s helpline at 197 we got the Municipal Commissioner’s (MC’s) number. The MC is guarded, like all civil servants, by a powerful PA. He informed us that the MC had been posted out. “What about his successor,” I asked. “Oh, the panel is being considered – it will take time, madam,” advised the PA. So I told him about our immediate problem with the cat and its litter and he very kindly put me onto the health department of the MC.
The health officer was in a meeting, but assured us that he would depute someone. Soon there was a smart bureaucratic person in our building, who informed us that while the Punjab Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, as applicable to Chandigarh, specifically mentioned dogs, cats fell in a grey area. “It depends on whether this is a pet cat or a wild cat? If it’s a pet it is the responsibility of the owner. If it’s a wild cat, then it’s the responsibility of the forest and wildlife department”.
So I was on Graham Bell’s invention to the forest department. “I’m sorry,” said the forest official, “our jurisdiction is limited to wild animals that stray into the city and the chances of a wild cat straying so deep into the city are remote”. But how does one tell a wild cat from a domesticated cat, I queried. “Oh, why don’t you call someone from Chhatbir Zoo,” advised our forester. Unfortunately, Chhatbir Zoo had no staff to spare. So they advised that we contact the municipal corporation.
We were back to where we’d started, on a path we had already traversed. Then someone suggested we contact the People for Animals (PFA). The PFA assured us of a visit from their animal catcher, but also apologised that unless the animals were sick, they couldn’t take them into their hospital. But they agreed to drop the strays on the city outskirts.
The PFA man came and informed us dourly, that he could catch the kittens but not the cat. He also admonished us “heartless taxmen” severely for separating the kittens from their mother and told us, quite unequivocally, that the kittens would undoubtedly be killed by wild animals on the city outskirts. Suddenly, it wasn’t about the health and safety of the participants, but about a mother and her young.
It was the day after Mother’s Day and on a day when the rest of the world was celebrating motherhood we ‘heartless taxmen’ decided to forget about health and safety, and let the cat and its kittens be.