Finally my Indian cats leave quarantine

Yesterday was the day my two Indian, or rather, Mumbai street cats left quarantine in Britain to enter their new home and start a new life in Somerset.
It was an emotional day.

I collected the cats from their quarantine pen in Britain where they have been staying since arriving from India

If you want to import animals from non EU countries, that still have rabies (such as India) into the UK, the cat or dog has to be put in a quarantine kennel for six months. There are a few exceptions, such as the USA and Hong Kong, but in the case of most non EU countries, including India, South Africa and Dubai, the British law currently states that the pet has to go into quarantine at the owner's expense. It is a derogation from EU law as usually Britain has to do whatever the EU does (and the EU does not have such strict regulations for importing animals) but somehow Defra has got consent not to follow the EU on this matter. The cost of putting my two cats into quarantine was £3,000 (Rs 2 Lakh Rs 20,000) and that excluded the cost of flights.

Some people are against quarantine as they believe, apart from being outdated, it is unpleasant for the animals and the owners. I guess if you look at humans, they arrive in airports every day carrying diseases, but they are not put into quarantine (unless they have swine flu!)  Quarantine was introduced into Britain more than 100 years ago, so it is certainly an ancient law and science has certainly progressed since then. In fact, there are now blood tests which can prove an animal has been vaccinated against rabies, which most countries use, so one wonders why quarantine is still in place in Britain. Another problem is that the costs are very prohibitive so many people are tempted to smuggle their animals in via Dover into the UK inside their cars. Scores of animals are caught entering the UK this way, and their owners  prosecuted, but I wonder how many more get through without ever being caught? That is a worrying thought.

A picture of the large quarantine pen with the door closed. This is where the two cats were kept.

In my case, the quarantine kennel staff did their best to make my cats' stay pleasant and there were plenty of toys and scratch boards inside their airy pen so I am very grateful. However, I don't think the cats especially enjoyed it. Being locked up, with the sounds of dogs barking nearby and random cats and people coming and going, without their owner present, was quite distressing. This of course would have happened in any kennel. Fortunately since they were Mumbai cats, they were fairly resilient and adapted quite quickly, often quicker than the other posh pedigree cats inside. It was funny because whenever I visited my older cat she would be thrilled to see me and then ignore me - to punish me for leaving her there, similar to the behaviour you might see from a woman in  love with a man who was upset he went away too much. The younger cat, however, was very frightened at first and hid in a box all day, refusing to greet me at all. I had to buy a special infuser called Feliway to stimulate her to come out. It eventually worked as it imitated her own scent and spread her smell around the room.

What I learnt from all this was that a cat is very attached to its owner, not to its physical home - thus exploding the myth that cats are attached to a place and not a person. During the period of my cats being in quarantine, even  if I did not visit them  for two weeks, they knew exactly who I was. When I took the cats out yesterday, they knew who I was. They never ever forgot.

Yesterday morning they arrived at their new country home, a world away from their previous home in Mumbai and quarantine.

I arrive home with the two cats

I introduced them to the garden first, in their cages, so they could see it.

One cat takes a look at the garden...She isn't allowed to go outside for a few weeks.

Dozens of birds were tweeting, country smells filled the air and they seemed ecstatic. This was like Paradise for them. Then I took them upstairs to my bedroom. They were astonished and curious and dashed around, sniffing every corner, opening every cupboard door and checking out the view from the window. After about an hour and a half, they had cottoned on to the fact this was their new home. The younger one, who usually hid in quarantine as as she was nervous, sat on my bed and stretched out on her back, waiting to be stroked on her tummy. I did and she started purring, for the first time ever since landing in England. She had not purred once in quarantine, no matter how much I stroked her on my visits. She was smart. She knew she was back with me and this was our home. She was in fact way smarter than I realised. That is why I dispute the belief that cats are attached to places, not people. My cats did not care this was not the Bandra flat. There were no signs of either of them missing their old lives, the hot weather of India, Mumbai, or even their quarantine kennel. They both had lived with me all their lives and now we were back together and that was all that seemed to count. They were most definitely attached to a person and not a place.

Little did they know there was a lot more to my house than the bedroom, but I was undertaking one step at a time. The next day they would get to see the conservatory. I needed them to feel secure, so that when I did eventually let them in the garden, they recognised the house as their home. Naturally they ignored the expensive scratch board I had bought, preferring to claw up the carpet and ignored the expensive cat bed, preferring my bed.

I put the radio on and settled down to do some work on my laptop. But before long the older cat had jumped onto my dressing table and kicked the cafetiere over, spilling coffee and granules all over the till then stain-free carpet.  As soon as I had mopped that up, the younger cat jumped across my desk, spilling a half drunk cup of tea over my papers in her stride. I saw this just in time to rescue the laptop. Next the younger cat got a fetish for the roses in a vase on the window sill. As she bit and pulled at a stalk, the vase wobbled and the water and vase went flying.

Both cats check my bedroom out

Next the elder cat jumped up on the bookshelf, pushing the cordless phone and all the ornaments off.

This was just like having kids, it dawned on me, as I took away all the ornaments, vases and coffee mugs and redesigned my room in a cat-friendly manner. I should have done it before they arrived.

At night, I moved them into the conservatory. Since it is made up only of glass, they had a full view of the garden. I went to bed worried about them and set my alarm clock for 3am so I could go down and check on them. Rather than finding them asleep, I was shocked to find the elder cat frozen in a defensive aggressive position, with her fur all stuck up on end. Her tail had tripled its thickness and she looked frightened out of her mind. I realised she must have come face to face with a badger or fox through the glass. I stroked her and went back to sleep, setting my alarm clock for 7am so I could go and check on them again. As a result I felt exhausted this morning. There was so much more I needed to show them and teach  them. It was just like having a new baby or toddler in  the house and I felt just as exhausted as a new parent claims to.

In fact, for the first time ever, I started to appreciate how tired new parents must feel. Until now I had never quite understood the responsibilities my friends faced being a parent, since I was footloose and single myself.  But now that had changed somewhat. I sometimes couldn't quite believe that a  street cat and her daughter from Mumbai were now in my home. It seemed at once absurd and at once a miracle. "You should write a story about their lives and call it Slumcat Millionaire, " my Dad joked.

Exhausted

Getting my cats out

I found her in a cardboard box in my Society building a week after I moved into my flat in Bandra. She
was a newly-born black and white kitten with two black and white siblings. There was no sign of a mother.

My cat as a newly born kitten living in the compound

At that time, I did not realise kittens were born to strays on every street corner of Mumbai, and thought it was unusual. I tried to call the SPCA (equiv of RSPCA) hoping they would send someone to rescue the kittens, but they only spoke Hindi and slammed the phone down; I told my watchmen - gesticulating in broken Hindi - but they just looked through me; I told the poor cleaning lady who collects rubbish and occasionally throws water over the communal floors - she spat on the ground. No one seemed interested. Finally an ugly brown cat that looked like it was full of worms turned up and the commnal cleaner told me this was the mother. I shoved her in the box, and rather disinterestedly she licked the kittens.

The mother cat fed her when she was a stray in the society

After I started feeding this worm-ridden hardened stray, she took more interest in the kittens, as she smartly linked food with hanging out with her offspring. This meant the kittens were at least getting breast milk. After two of the kittens died (one from worms, the other from being paralysed by a child in the Society who threw it in the air like a tennis ball when I made a short trip to London), I rescued the final one, and she moved into my apartment. I kept the door open to see if she wanted to go back to her mother. She didn't. That night the mother left the Society and never returned. In fact initially I thought I had rescued the kitten, but it soon became clear, as the loneliness of living by myself in a city like Mumbai, and having to navigate my way through the rather terrifying P 3 party scene, as well as make friends, took hold, that she had indeed rescued me. After some time she became my best friend, and was the thing/animal I would think of all day long and who I could not wait to see after work. In fact I used to phone my maid three times a day and ask her how my kitten was. (Had Sunday lunch with some family friends at the weekend, one of whom is a counsellor. He told me that it was common for people to 'project' feelings and value on to objects (eg photos and paintings) or animals, that to others had no value at all...and this reflected íssues the person was grappling with. So maybe, I projected a 'roommate' onto her, as that is what she became. Maybe, I should not have lived alone...)

My kitten plays with random items discarded in the compound

Anyway, she soon went on heat and got a boyfriend. The stray worm-ridden black tom cat would come up every night to see her. I fed him as well, afer all I had to be hospitable...it was her boyfriend after all. I planned to get her sterilised, but the vet went on holiday. I waited till he got back, but by that time she was pregnant. I had caught her having sex with the black stray on numerous occasions so it came as no surprise. After growing incredibly fat, and looking like she would never pop, she finally gave birth to three kittens one Easter Saturday. I found a home for one with an American expat, one died a few weeks after being paralaysed following a fall from the 6th floor, and one was left, so I kept the remaining kitten and mother, as they were able to keep each other company.

A year ago, I started thinking about what to do with the cats if I were to leave India...My vet said to me: "If you had two children and had to leave India, would you consider leaving them behind? No. Well, these cats are your children."

I was pretty sure anyway that, had I put up a poster saying: "Adult cats available for adoption", I would have had no response. In fact, once I sent an email to all the animal charities, saying "Cat wanted for adoption", (this was before the mother gave birth,  at a time that I wanted to get her a companion) and my phone did not stop ringing for three days, some people even turned up outside my apartment block with kittens in hand without an appointment. I did not take any as I was so freaked out by the overwhleming response .

From my various involvements with animal charities, and the animal hospital in Mumbai, I soon realised that they were all inundated with 'dumped unwanted pets.' I did not want to become another like that. If the cat I rescued and her daughter were to stay in India, they would have to have a good home. But there clearly is and was no demand for domestic shorthaired Indian cats (read: stray or as my Dad says feral cats) in Mumbai. The only pet people seemed to have in Maximum City were pedigree dogs. Cats were not kept as pets. So, I had to take on the vet's view, which was, regardless of the cost, I had to fly the cats to England, and then pay for them to go in quarantine for 6 months...if I ever left India

I had absolutely no idea what was required, but knew, that being India, it would be complex, and possibly impossible to fathom. And it was.

With no idea where to start, I took a cab to the air cargo complex at Mumbai airport a year ago, with a plan of visiting the airline offices inside who dealt with cargo. I wandered inside and was promptly jumped on by security and walked to a room, where I was searched. Then , since noone spoke English I was marched to the office of the head of cargo, or similar. An Indian bureacrat who staff referrred to rather over-politely as 'Sir' was inside. Papers were stacked everywhere and timid men queued outside to see him. I was taken straight inside. I explained to him that I had two Indian cats I may want to take out of the country. "These are Indian cats!" he bellowed. "You are not allowed to take India cats out of India." That seemed like an absurd statement to make, since if I did not take them with me, where would they go? Be put back on the streets? I made a mental note that, if anyone ever asked me I would not say the cats were Indian. After all, who was to know!

He then muttered on about how complex it was and apart from a million other things, that I would need to get clearance from a single doctor, based most conveninetly in Navi Mumbai, who didn't have a phone or address and was only open three days a week, and I couldn't make appointments with and who would only issue a certificate six days before the flight...without which the cats couldn't fly..It was more complex than getting a work permit or a passport it seemed... And that was only the beginning of the labyrinth awaiting me..

The stray kitten I rescued as an adult cat