Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Le MoMo Part 2, with Chadda Co-starring


But here is the best MoMo story ever: He was away for a couple of days, and one late evening we found him miawwing frantically at the front door: he was badly hurt, a flap of skin by his side exposed, about the size of a cell phone. It was too late to take him to Dr. Shrestha, so through my tears I put the electric bar heater in the spare bathroom, placed towels on the cold floor, sterilized and bandaged the wound as best as I could, and cut up some leftover steak and water.

David was watching all these with amusement. Later on just before retiring I checked up on him: well well well, there was a vase with a single rose, the portable radio, an alarm clock, a new tennis ball, and extra towels. Placed there by Guess Who.

We had only two cats in Ktm. After MoMo's longtime disappearance and the mysterious appearance of three very tiny Siamese-like kittens (who died one day after they were discovered in the back of the flat, the three of them could fit into David's shoe), we had Chadda, who was specially flown in from Dhaka by Mel and Tony Drexler: they were scouting for a high school for Maya and thought of Lincoln School at that time (Maya ended up in Singapore while the Drexlers went to Pakistan). Chadda was All White, with one grayish ear, and slept probably 98 percent of the time. Pema would call out "Tadda, Tadda Teeping!!" to wake her up from her stupor. It was also the time we had to pack and leave Kathmandu for a posting in Bangkok.

Our Tibetan carpet man Phuntchok of Thamel, took Chadda in: when we checked with him a couple of days later, he said, "She is always sleeping!". Tamad. Probably Marlon Brando's white cat was also Tamad. Or Saddot in Iloko.



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