Doggone Cats

As an outsider to the world of fantasy novels, I’d always painted Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings with the same brushstroke. You know, magical lands, bearded old wizards in robes, dragon-type creatures, a valuable artifact that everyone is after…that sort of thing. Little did I know how wrong I was – true fans of the fantasy genre are a passionate lot, and you don’t want to be at the wrong end of this passion by ignorantly categorizing Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings as being “pretty much the same thing”. Howls of outrage, shrieks of disagreements and threats to sever ties of friendship are just some of the outcomes you should be prepared for in the event of such an extremity.

The Lord of the Rings fans consider themselves to be the original and true fans of the genre – the ones that took to fantasy before it went mainstream, the ones that are truly immersed in their little world of fantasy, even if it isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Harry Potter, to them, is a dumbed down version of the fantasy genre to make it more accessible to a wider audience – but it isn’t the real deal. It’s like the cricket obsessed guy that’s wary of a girlfriend who only gets excited about India-Pakistan matches, or those Metallica fans that look down on people who say they like Metallica because of ‘Nothing Else Matters’. On the other hand, to a Harry Potter fan, the Lord of the Rings fellow is a pretentious snob who only looks down on Harry Potter because of its popularity – the way you’d disown a fashion trend in college if it became way too popular and even the uncool kids started wearing it.

It’s the kind of mistake that people in the US political circles always make. Whenever a US politician makes a South Asia trip, they’d club India and Pakistan together – to them it’s all the same “Brown skinned people, spicy food, chaotic streets and crowded countries.” To us, though, it’s flabbergasting. How can you hyphenate us with Pakistan? We’re a peace loving, democratic and cultured lot with a growing economy that you must invest in, whereas they’re war-mongering religious nutjob terrorists on the verge of utter collapse.

Like India-Pakistan or Harry Potter-Lord of the Rings, it’s the same with cats and dogs among most people I know – loving cats and loving dogs are mutually exclusive activities. A dog lover would wax lyrical about dogs being a picture of affection and loyalty, while dismissing cats as aloof and selfish. A cat lover, on the other hand, would deride dogs as being dumb and too much of a slobbering mess while praising cats as intelligent creatures that were a study in stately, regal indifference. You had to be either a cat person or a dog person – you weren’t allowed to be both. Somehow, that never made much sense to me – while I fancied myself as more of a dog person, I quite liked cats as well.

Maybe it was a bit of an underdog (or undercat, perhaps!) thing – I genuinely felt bad for cats. I think it all started with Tom & Jerry. Unlike most people, I was a wholehearted Tom sympathizer. Jerry was no helpless mouse; he was a smug, sadistic bastard who knew that Tom would never catch him, and derived great vicarious pleasure watching poor Tom fail spectacularly in his ill-fated attempts. Even if Tom did catch Jerry, that bulldog would suddenly appear and thrash the living bejesus out of Tom. The worst was when Tom would try to woo a female cat. He’d suddenly start talking, and with a suave French accent at that – how cool was that? Is there anything that resourceful cat could not do? And Jerry, instead of allowing Tom to enjoy that one little sliver of happiness in an otherwise hopeless existence, that one fleeting glimmer of success in a lifetime ridden with crushing, bitter failure, would go out of his way to ensure that he’d ruin it for Tom. As I grew older, it was the same with movies. A dog would be the hero’s best friend, a dog would be the protector of the hero’s family, a dog would help you get through the snow, a dog would attack the bad guy just when he was about to kill you – well, you get the picture. A cat, on the other hand, would just sit on a villain’s lap and look evil. Somehow, traditional media didn’t have any affection for cats.

And then the Internet came along. Sure, it’s changed the way we work, shop, interact with people and spend our free time, but it’s cats that have been the biggest beneficiaries of the World Wide Web. Suddenly cats were playing the piano, looking grumpy, tap dancing, engaging in pitched battles with household objects or simply doing nothing at all – and people were lapping it all up. Raved about on Youtube, followed on Instagram, merchandised as mugs and T-Shirts – cats were all over the Internet while dogs were still only email forwards.

This is all a very long-winded way of coming to the point of what was originally intended as a post about deciding on a pet. While reasonably fond of animals, I’m not of the zealous animal lover disposition – the sort of person who’d turn vegetarian or crusade for animal rights at every given opportunity. A bit like how most people would like an ideal relationship to be, when I did come around to the thought of a pet, the pet-human equation I sought belonged more in the casual, no-strings-attached end of the spectrum. Sure, I’d play with the pet and have my share of fun, but I wasn’t signing up for too much of the maintenance part – the cleaning up, the regular walks and all the other daily rigours and rituals that having a pet would entail. A cat, then, seemed to be the ideal starting point – a happy equilibrium of reasonable fun and low bother.

Disclaimer: As anyone who’s ever been married would’ve guessed by now, all this was just post-rationalisation. The truth is that The Missus is fond of cats, so a cat it was.

Once again though, it turns out I was sadly mistaken. The happy equilibrium was merely a mirage – the cat we ended up with was shrill, attention seeking, opinionated and clumsy. Calling her “a study in stately, regal indifference” would be akin to describing a Quentin Tarantino movie as a gentle, non-violent paragon of filmmaking. Now, if only an Internet sensation and a lot of money could be made – redemption could be at hand!

Life Isn't Like a Panda - There are Shades of Grey!

They say a picture can speak a thousand words. This isn’t necessarily a good thing. Navjot Sidhu can speak a thousand words. Mamata Banerjee can speak a thousand words. The question is - would you really want those thousand words to be spoken to you? The truth is there are times when you really do not want a picture to speak a thousand words. Take, for example, those ‘friends’ of yours that incessantly put up pictures of themselves or of their innumerable vacations on social networking sites. As soon as the picture tries talking to you, you wish it would just shut up – a thousand words in such cases could lead you to inflict grievous self-harm.


And then there was this curious phenomenon that saw pictures of cute furry animals being the rage in the email forwarding universe. I’ve often wondered if the inventor of the email feels that his achievement has been tarnished by the fact that it directly led to the invention of the forward. What was it that made somebody think “Hey, my friend is having a terrible day at the office. He’s just been looked over for promotion, this girl he was interested in is sleeping with his arch nemesis and he got car-jacked on the way to work. Why don’t I put together some pictures of cute, furry animals and email it across to him? That’s bound to cheer him up!”


At this point, you might want to tell me “So some people like to spend all their time putting together pictures of cute furry animals and sending it to everyone on their mailing list in the hope that it gets circulated again and again. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re harming anyone, or that it makes any difference to grave matters of world affairs. So why are you ranting about this?” That’s where I’d beg to differ – the equivalent of sending forwards of cute furry animals has actually taken place at the pinnacle of global politics, and has had a significant outcome on the course of geopolitical events over the last few decades.


Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you…(drumrolls)….Panda Diplomacy!


To begin with, let’s look at the background - 
1945 - The Second World War is over, and to keep themselves occupied most major world powers are engaged in this cat-and-mouse game that’s called the Cold War. China joins the ranks of the communists and is an ally of the Russians – hence making the US antagonistic towards China. This goes on throughout the 1950s and the 1960s – there are no diplomatic ties at all between the US and China.


By early 1970s, though, the situation began to change. The US and China decided they couldn’t ignore each other any longer, and Richard Nixon announced a visit to China in 1972. The Chinese, methodical as always, thought long and hard about what steps could be taken to improve ties between the two countries. There were all the usual measures – removal of trade barriers, opening of diplomatic channels, paradigm shift in foreign policy…that sort of stuff. But this was all regular stuff that often happened at summit-level talks – there was nothing new or remarkable about this, nothing that would really get the people excited, nothing that would yank them out of their state of apathy and jolt them like a cold-water shower on a rainy winter day.


And that’s when the eureka moment struck – pandas! Why not gift Nixon a pair of pandas? When the Americans saw the Chinese gifting Nixon a pair of pandas, it was sure to melt the hearts of even the most cynical commentators. And it did – the pandas were donated to the Washington zoo amidst great fanfare and were a wild success. Over a million Americans visited the pandas in the first year alone – and the US-Chinese relationship has not looked back since then, going from strength to strength. Well, at least until the day the Chinese wake up and ask the US to return all their money!


For those of you wondering what Nixon’s return gift was, it was a pair of musk oxen – but this did not receive as much publicity, possibly on account of the Chinese not being too pleased about the fact that the musk oxen did not arrive with cooking instructions. 


While this was the most famous example of Panda Diplomacy, it wasn’t the first or the last – until the 1980s China had donated about 2 dozen pandas to various countries as a sort of ultimate gesture of grand goodwill towards that country (no prizes for guessing how many India got – none). So there have been a few other instances when that last option was ticked in response to the second question in the Panda Requisition Form. For those curious, this is what the Panda Requisition Form looks like.

In the 1980s, though, things got even more interesting. China decided that rather than gifting the pandas, it would loan them to countries for the price of 1 million dollars a year! A panda loan - that would surely be far more interesting than getting one of the usual calls for a personal loan that most of us keep getting. Imagine this – you’re a high ranking official in, say, the British government, and your phone rings one fine morning:


You: Hello?
Chinese-sounding voice at the other end of the line: Good morning, Sir! I’m calling from the Chinese government. You want panda loan?
You: No thanks, old chap. I'm afraid I'm not interested.
Panda loan salesman: Only 1 million dollars a year, Sir. And pandas…they are very cute and cuddly. You’ll like, Sir.
You: That's all jolly well, old fellow...but I really don’t need a panda right now.
Panda loan salesman: We give you one month’s supply of shoots and leaves. For free! And we give you import waiver document. And we no charge for shipping and…
(Disconnect phone)


Perhaps India could take a leaf out of China’s book and use cute, furry animals during summit-level talks with Pakistan – what have we got to lose? Rather than the usual abrupt end to the talks when both parties go back sulking and blaming each other, it could turn out something like this:


Zardari: Listen, Manmohan. You know the drill; we’ve been through this before. There isn’t any major breakthrough going to happen as that would mean either you or me losing face politically and consequently the next election. So we need to come up with something that’ll make it look like we’ve made progress and this hasn’t been a massive waste of time.


Manmohan: You’re right, people are tired of these Confidence Building Measures – it’s starting to wear a little thin. We need some fresh ideas that’ll make it look like real progress is being made. So I hired a creative agency to do some brainstorming and come up with something new. I think you’ll like what you hear – they’re very persuasive and use a lot of big words and analogies.


The head of the creative agency – a crisp, suited Don Draper-type character confidently strides into the room with a nonchalantly arrogant air about him.


Crisp, suited Don Draper-type character: Confidence Building Measures. Let’s begin with the name, gentlemen, because the name is what sets the tone. Confidence Building – you know what that says? That there’s currently zero confidence between India and Pakistan! That may be the reality – but do the people want reality? NO! People want hope, people want dreams, and people want to go to bed dreaming of a brighter future. That’s how all the big brands are built – Coke, Intel, GE – they all promise a better tomorrow. That’s why blockbuster movies with happy endings far outsell gritty realist movies – people want an escape! So let’s not call it Confidence Building – let’s call it Confidence Enhancing. This suggests that there’s already confidence between India and Pakistan – it just needs enhancement. 
And measures – why use such a dry word? Do you think people connect to measures in an emotional way? NO! Measures are seen as mathematical and functional – people don’t want that! Your marks are a measure, your weight is a measure, your targets are a measure – would anyone want to be reminded of that? NO! People remember milestones, not measures! Your first kiss, the day you graduated, your first paycheck, your wedding date – people live their lives from one milestone to the next. Milestones are what you measure your life by; milestones are what you’re left with when you look back at your life. So let’s call it milestones instead of measures. So what we have then, are Confidence Enhancing Milestones as opposed to Confidence Building Measures. Confidence Enhancing Milestones – doesn’t the mere sound of that fill your heart with hope? In fact…


At this point a kitten walks into the room across Zardari’s chair.


Zardari (excitedly looking at kitten – until now he had a particularly stiff demeanor – suddenly it is replaced by unbridled joy): Oh my God, Manmohan! Is that kitten yours? It’s like the cutest thing ever! Can I please have it? I’ll give you anything in return – take all of Kashmir. In fact, take NWFP as well while you’re at it – I have no idea what the hell to do with that region. I’m sure you could make it into a tourist destination or something – it has mountains. We’ll also hand over Hafeez Saeed to you; stop helping Dawood – anything at all, as long as you let me have the kitten. Pleeeeease???


65 years of bitterness ended by one cute kitten. No wonder those forwards are so popular.