With nothing to do, I would lie on my bed all day long and get bored out of my wits. Sometimes my older sister would come and sit beside me. But she was not always free and had scores of household chores to attend to. So most of the time, I was left in my own pathetic company. I would stare out of the window for hours watching how the clouds form different shapes and then disappear. Once I saw a giant elephant with it trunk raised in the air like it was dancing and there was another that looked like a furry white rabbit. And hundred more shapes. Sometimes the sky was so clear that there was not a single streak of cloud in it, and at those times I would miss my elephants and rabbits. Besides that, I loved listening to the chirping of sparrows in the nearby litchi garden.  We had a huge litchi orchard with hundreds of trees back then. I got up on my bed and looked towards the garden. The flowers had just started to bud and moths and insects had started hovering around them. It was beautiful sight—like a huge green house with a beautiful white roof. It was summer magic. “In the beginning of Ashad, these flowers will be replaced by fruits,” I thought. And then I remembered that earlier that morning my father had been talking about the prospect of a hailstorm this year. Hailstorms were bad for those budding flowers. I knew that much.

One afternoon I made a new friend. I had been tossing and turning on my bed, unable to sleep and silently cursing my fate. It was mid-summer and the day was very hot.  I was starting to feel thirsty and reached the jug of water on the floor. And there it was, a cat, licking the water spilled on the floor with quick successions of gentle strokes of his cute little pink tongue. Seeing me rise had alarmed him; he stared at me with his big blue eyes for a while, backed up a little and prepared to run away. But I remained motionless as a stone and made a soothing sound with my tongue to let him know that I was no foe and intended him no harm. But he kept staring at me curiously as if he was trying to read my eyes and decipher the intentions of my heart. He was no cat of ours. I could tell. We’d had ours missing for the past six months and it was pitch dark. This one had whitish fur with black stripes all over and looked healthy and well fed. “I am not going to hurt you,” I said softly. And as if apprehending my words, he carefully moved towards the water throwing me his suspicious glances only occasionally. I reached for my water jug and poured him more water. He only slouched back a little this time. He knew I was his friend now.

Every afternoon he would come to my room and lie beside the window. “And how are you this afternoon, friend?” I would greet him. Hearing my voice he would look at me with his pure blue eyes and raise his tail in air as if he meant to tell me that he was as fine as the day. Sometimes he would walk towards the jug and start sniffing it. I would pour him some water then. “It is a hot day, my friend. Would you like me to pour you more?” He would look at me in such a funny expression that I could not help myself from laughing aloud. When he was sleeping, I would look at his whiskers, the soft up and down motion of his belly, his puffy head and admire how neatly he folded his paws. “Cats look like tigers,” I thought. “Maybe he was a tiger in his previous life.” And that night when I insisted my sister tell me a story about a cat she had told me earlier: the story of Bilraj, a cat who was a friend of prince Samar’s. He had protected the Prince, who was lost in the forest, against deadly rat monsters who would have eaten his ears while he was sleeping otherwise. Bilraj had also guided him back to the palace. “Cats are brave,” I thought.

Our friendship was flourishing well. I would sometimes serve him some milk and he would be delighted but he would always want some more. Meeoow, he would purr looking at me. “I need milk too. I am a sickly little boy, can’t you see?” I would try to explain. He would then go back to his favourite place

beside the window and lie down closing his eyes and carefully folding his neat paws. And I would tell him my favourite stories. I had started to like him very much. “He is my Bilraj,” I thought. Bilraj who would drive away the rat monsters who would come to bit my ears off while I was sleeping.

Sometimes Bilraj won’t show up and I would get restless. I would wait for hours. I did not care for the chirping of the sparrows or the giant elephants in the sky anymore. All I cared about was this friend of mine who had supposedly forgotten me. “Cats are not forgetful,” I would reassure myself. “Otherwise, how could Billraj have guided Prince Samar back to his palace?”

Now I had started to spend my days fantasising. I was prince Samar and I would go out on adventures with Bilraj to hunt down the rat monsters. We would range the high and wide mountains together, cross gigantic rivers and fly with our magic wings over a vast stretch of cities and villages like free birds, unafraid of the heights. At night I was not afraid because Bilraj was there to guard me against the monsters. I would wander far and wide without ever fearing losing my way. I had Bilraj to guide me home. “Cats remember the way.” I knew.

And one day he vanished. It was a cloudy day and it was beginning to drizzle outside. He did not show up in the morning. I thought maybe he would come in the afternoon but he did not. I was sad. I spent all afternoon trying to come up with a reassuring explanation as to why he did not come to me that day. May be he wandered too far into the forest. Or maybe the rat monsters had laid a trap for him. Or maybe he met a real prince and forgot about me. There were thousands of possibilities. I did not feel like eating or drinking any more. And one time I even cried. “Boys should not cry,” my father used to say. I did not care. I cried.

And he did not show up the other day. And another day and another. After that I lost hope of ever seeing him again altogether.

 Three months had passed since Bilraj had disappeared. And I was not as sad as I was back when he had failed to show up the first time, although sometimes I thought about him. My father was elated. The flowers had magically survived the hailstorm this time and now the garden was red with ripened litchis hanging from their branches— red and rich in nectar. “Maybe I was too childish back then falling in love with a cat”. I thought. “Maybe all Bilraj cared about was getting his share of milk and he never took me for his friend. May be cats are all forgetful.

May be cats make no friends .They are beasts after all”.

I walked towards the orchard. The rain had just stopped and the leaves were still dripping with water. It was a beautiful sight to behold, a garden full of rich fruits. There I saw my little sister collecting litchis that had fallen to the ground the night before. I called her and she came running towards me giggling and showed me joyfully how she had collected a packetful of litchis all on her own. “It’s wonderful, my little sister,” I told her. It was a cool evening and the night was descending fast. A gentle breeze was blowing and as it was caressing my face with its soft, silk-like invisible fingers, I could tell something had changed inside me. I could not figure out precisely what it was at the moment but I certainly felt stronger. “I am not a little boy anymore,” I told myself.