For all the pet...

Rambai – Langsat – Duku – Ciku – Manggis – Labu – Kundor – Rambutan

They are the local fruit and vegetables. If that is your guess, guess again. If you ask me they are mammals, from a feline family. They are my cats. Back then, when I was small (but a little older than my lovely daughter now) about two years old, I have dozens of cats. The name above is just for some of them. But I was close to 8 of them.

Rambai was a female dominant cat. She has like seven colors on her. Spots of course. She gave birth to almost dozens other and all of them are mine. She lived long enough to see me go to secondary school. I was 16 when she died. I don’t know how old is she in cat years but I think it is old. She even started to eat vegetables because she can’t possibly be eating any meat anymore since losses all her teeth during the end of her reign as the dominant female cat.

Langsat was Rambai’s confidante. She’s a female cat too. Whenever you see Rambai, Langsat will be there. It is like a bodyguard thingy but closer. They share same plate of food every meal. Langsat is yellow with couple of white spots on her body.

Duku and Ciku is two young male cats. All they do is laze around and guard the house. One day, when me and my parent were out (yes, only me at that time and no brothers yet), a viper actually went into our house. When we came back, we saw both of them playing with the already dead viper. I assume that they killed the poor snake.

Manggis is unique. How unique. If you believe in these entire Feng-Sui thing, you’ll sat manggis is bad luck. She’s black with white on the tips of her ears. She wears white socks too.

Kundor was a tragic story. He died in front of me. A three-ton lorry ran over him. You should see him man. Flat on the tarmac dead. I think all of his nine lives are wasted on that accident. He was all white with half tail.

Labu was orange (hence the name labu) and rambutan came later on. I wonder why didn’t I have durian, genuak, petai etc. But that was that.

Later (when my brother came), I had more cats but no more local fruits. They are “the King” (named after Elvis), I have Ringgo, Lennon, Harisson and Mc Cartney (the infamous quartet known as the “Beatles”), I have Mickey, Duckie and Goofy (the Disney cartoon character) and last but not least I have Charlie (Lockheed C-130 Hercules), Orion (PC-3), Tom (F-14 Tom Cat) and Hawk (A-4 Skyhawk (all of them are named after airplanes.

Then, for a period of 5 or 6 years we lived without pets. That’s when we moved around like the bedawian people. Not until one day, my father brought back Rickie except that he’s not a cat. It is a civet. It is a protected wild life but we took it anyway. My father found him next to the runway in Jalan Gambang Air Force Base in Kuantan. The mother abandoned him and scoop away I supposed. He was our pet for almost eight months until he disappear one day. We never knew what actually happened to him.

Then I got to know some other cats. Clyde is a fat stupid lazy cat. He was not like that before the owner decides to snip (ouch) you know what. Pity him. He died of heart attack I heard. Then, the alpha male Rupert and the “tembel” Joe. At the same time, I know Cabbit (me and my wife think that she was eaten by the Vietnamese contractors in Kajang since she looks like a cat and a rabbit therefore the name Cabbit), Moe and (what was her name. I can’t remember), oh never mind there was another one.

I relief them from their duties except for Rupert (the cat with an attitude) when my wife and me are expecting our daughter and that was it. I think my daughter like cats as well. Whenever she sees a cat she’ll go (in her language) meow, eeeeee meow.