12 Days old kitty
Dehradun is a valley where it is difficult to predict the weather. It may be sunny now, then cloudy and then rainy.
A pregnant cat used to roam around in our street, asking for food but kept a distance from people. But that day she was struggling to walk and did not have the strength to run away from people. I looked at her as usual and she went away. It had rained heavily that night.
The next day a lady in the street told me that this morning itself some dogs killed the same cat because it could not climb the wall quickly. And while burying it they realized that there were no babies in its womb. That day I went to the empty plot and searched a lot for the kittens, but I was unsuccessful. Then after talking to everyone I realized that maybe the kittens did not survive because there was heavy rain throughout the night.
After 2 days the kittens were found on a damaged sofa of the neighbour's house which they had kept in the parking area. I did not know this. While playing in the street, the children said let's go and see the kittens, then I came to know about it. When I went to the parking area, I saw that the owner of that house was feeding milk to those 5 kittens one by one from a bottle. They were kept in a cage. But they were not covered with warm clothes and they were very wet, because they had urinated a lot on each other.
They were shivering, I asked the owner of the house if he had experience of keeping cats. From this, I understood that this was his first experience with any animal. He was very happy and he wanted to help the kittens, which was very good for me to know.
I told him that if he needed any help then he should tell me, and first dry them, keep them warm, otherwise it will be difficult for the kittens to survive. He said he will do it and I left from there.
Two days later, the lady of that house came to our house and told that one of the five kittens had died. They took the other babies to the doctor and they put them on drips but there was no improvement. And by the time we reached their home, one more baby had died. Now we took the three kittens to another doctor and he gave them all injections and told them to keep warm. All three babies were now in our home.
Overnight two more babies died and now the one baby that was left showed some improvement. All day long he seemed to be getting better. He had to be given antibiotics three times a day. On the 14th day he opened his eyes and we were overjoyed. After the doctor's checkup, he asked us to stop the medicine.
On the 15th day his stomach started bloating in the morning and within an hour that baby also died. Even today we cannot digest the fact that the last baby who was left seemed fine and with a lot of sorrow we buried all the babies one by one.
Last Goodbye
It was a very sad day when we buried the last baby. I was hoping that if even one kitten survives, then maybe we won't feel so bad. That night I stayed awake with this last child and prayed a lot, moisture in my eyes remain for many days and today again remembering that day my eyes have filled up again. This happened in November 2024 and I was not able to forget it, so I thought that maybe by sharing it with everyone I might feel a little better.
Disclaimer - I have originally written this post in Hindi and translated it into English with the help of Google translator. All the photos have been taken from my phone OnePlus.