Iam Caged

This was the message I got from a little cute cat, which was moving freely in the open terrace of a three- storeyed shopping centre behind closed doors. But each time a person visits the terrace it shows a sad look which meant "Iam caged, please help me out from this place".

It so happened, that I had to purchase some grocery. A once a while shopping where my A to Z purchases are done. I was told by the people and shop keepers downstairs, in the open terrace sale of birds, cats and fishes was in progress. It's been in progress for a while, may be six months but it started getting active only recently.

The terrace was an empty ground before. The door of the terrace closes itself once we open it. Just a protection for this silent creatures. When we got in a cute cat was after us. There were three of them. Though the colour of it is white, due to the dust it is dark brown in colour. While one was left freely to roam around the other two were caged.

Saying "meow" it was just after us. May be with the intention of coming with us. It was rubbing itself along my husband's legs. Its feed was kept nearby and when we try to feed it, to our disappointment it just ignored. May be tired of tasting the same food.

When I was going around, watching the birds and fishes, my husband said he will be back in 10 minutes and left. Even before he could reach the terrace door, the cat stood before him to jump out. Poor thing, I just can't imagine the pity look in its face when my husband escaped smartly through the door leaving it behind.

Sometimes its hard to face some realities in life. I too have a cat at my home. It enjoys all the foods that we eat and sleeps a lot. For sometime it goes to the neighborhood and is back for dinner. Its just left in the open. Mostly in the garden area. It has cosy cardboard box for sleeping. When I saw the cat in the terrace I felt that though it is left loose, it is just within the four walls. So each time it sees a customer, no matter if he is familiar or not it just runs to him and cries "meow".!

As I was just going around I saw some beautiful bird, behind big bars. They were chirping. All hanging to the grills. Water in mud pots were kept in all the four sides and its feed was also placed in a corner. On seeing me, everyone who was closeby me was out of my sight. I wanted to capture a photo of these colourful birds but they were not ready to even glance at me.

Then I saw small fishes placed in small built-in water tanks. There were too many varieties. But hardly in countable numbers. But some small fishes were kept in small Basins, so it was helpful to capture them.

After sometime my husband came up and time was up for leaving. When we neared the door, the cat about whom I spoke was no where in visibility, just came running to jump out along with us crying "meow" with the same sad look.

On seeing its pitiful look, we do not want to open the door so we waited for the cat to turn around. When it left, we slowly opened the door and left. As mentioned earlier, the door closes itself behind us. But as and when we were going down stairs, I could hear the cry of the cat near the door, which may actually should have meant "please let me go with you'.

Sometimes I feel its really sad to keep this silent creatures caged. But such creatures cannot be let to move around freely, because it might definitely become extinct very soon.

All images captured in my my mobile, on my visit to the terrace. One of them modified in Canva.