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.
