Gizmo’s Even Greater Adventure

In which Gizmo, aforesaid Hamster, escapes his cage and is flung into the big wide world outside.

Gizmo's next great adventure took place when once again I was abroad, but this time on my own, as school was still in session. 786 Hilal was fully occupied by family and extended family. Zahra, my sister in law, and her husband Azhar had just arrived from Canada and were trying to sleep off the jetlag in our guest bedroom on the lower ground floor. In the middle of the night Zahra was disturbed by a persistent scrabbling noise.  She woke up her husband, they switched on the light and found to their amazement a rodent perched on their bed, nose twitching, whiskers vibrating and paws proffered up elegantly.

‘A rat!’ shrieked Zahra.

Azhar girded his loins and gritted his teeth.

Gizmo did not react to the shout of alarm. In fact, he did not show the slightest inclination to scarper.

Azhar’s mental machinery jerked into action and he got up to catch the ‘rat’.

In spite of the fog of jet lag, it occurred to Zahra that this was an unusual rat as she would have expected him to have scurried off lickety-split. But the idea that before her quivered an esteemed pet resident of 786 Hilal had not occurred to her.

Azhar managed to place the ‘rat’ under the waste basket which he left turned upside down. That would do for now, he thought. Best to deal with it in the morning.

Both went back to sleep. Some time later, they were again awoken by the disturbing sounds of scratching. Azhar got up to check on the ‘rat’. The ‘rat’ had almost chewed its way out through the basket, its snout was now poking out through the hole it had made.

‘This creature is not going to let us sleep!’ groaned Azhar. ‘I’m going to kill it!’

‘No!’ cried Zahra, ‘just put it out.’

Amenable to his wife’s entreaty, Azhar roused himself further out of his soporific stupor, put on his slippers, went up and out through the front door, intending to rid himself of this pest. By then it was almost 5 am and close to fajr, the morning prayer. His emergence took the nightwatchman by surprise. But Azhar marched up to the gate, let himself out, walked across the street to the huge empty plot opposite and flung the ‘rat’ into the pile of garbage that daily accumulates from the string of houses along the street.

Hearing the commotion at the gate, Chacha, our diligent chowkidar, came to investigate.

‘What was that all about?’ he asked the guard.

‘Oh, the Mehman (guest) Sahib threw a rat out of the house,’ said the guard, grinning.

Chacha was nonplussed.

‘Rat?’ thought Chacha to himself, ‘there are no rats in this house!’ And he should know because not only did he fulfil the role of chowkidar, he was also our general and invaluable helper around the house. Every day he would open up the house and close it up. He would set up the breakfast table every morning, slice up melon for breakfast, make tea and toast for Ammi, set out the dinner table, take care of the balcony plants, feed the cat, feed and water the birds, help clean up the corpses of cockroaches and chipkallis which might have been dealt death blows during the night, set up our namaz room for circles of dhikr whenever we have them,  bring tea to our guests, clean the fans and mosquito screens once a week – in short he fulfilled an indispensable role of bearer and Man Friday, all with dedication and touching humility.  If our home had become infested with rats, he would have been the first to notice. Having played a pivotal role in Gizmo’s rescue in his first great adventure, hamster welfare was yet another item on his wide-ranging checklist.

‘Gizmo! It’s Gizmo!’ he realized with a sudden and awful dread. ‘Chotey Sahib’s Gizmo!’

Probably fearing all sorts of dire consequences should Gizmo be once again lost, but this time possibly forever, Chacha got mobilized.

Things moved rapidly from now on.

Kimchi, our diminutive and semi-feral garden cat, had also gotten wind of the commotion and her curiosity was peaked. She seldom let any opportunity for mischief pass her by. She soon squeezed herself out under the gate and into the street and started to follow up the heady aroma of Gizmo’s somewhat musky scent (in the way that small furry mammals can reek).

Chacha was now out in the garbage heap opposite the house, trying to pick over the debris in search for the fluffball that is Gizmo. Undaunted by the pile of orange peel, empty tetrapaks, rotting vegetables and other unsavoury items of refuse, Chacha strained to see a living creature amongst the decaying debris. Then he noticed Kimchi start bounding down the road towards Hilal Park, but a few hundred yards down the street.

Somehow Kimchi’s purposefulness struck Chacha as noteworthy and instinctively he abandoned the garbage heap and started to follow her down towards the direction of the park.

His eyes trailing the road for any sight of a moving ball of pale golden fluff, Chacha found himself at the corner of the park. Suddenly, there before him, scurrying along the ground at a creditable speed, was Gizmo! With Kimchi about to pounce, Chacha swooped on the rodent with relief.

Back home he inserted Gizmo into his small cage and made sure the gates were shut. Gizmo was safe and sound, back in his little home, far away from the heady odours of Hilal street, the dust, building debris, and wafting petunia scents from the park. But also far from the beady eyes of crows ever on the lookout for a tasty morsel and kites swirling above in the Karachi skies ready to scoop up such a prize meal.

Chacha takes pride in his care and concern for the residents of 786 Hilal, big and small alike, and so he should.