The Dalai Lama's Cat (The Dalai Lama's Cat 1)

ure. As students of European history will already have guessed, I’m referring to the French Revolution.

Had that been any different from what was happening to me now? Had the mild-mannered Chogyal transmogrified into a sinister Tibetan Robespierre? Was the way he displayed me to those we met not precisely what had happened when the hapless aristocrats were wheeled through the streets of Paris to meet their grisly fate at the guillotine—a gruesome ritual I’d heard about while Tenzin munched on his lunchtime sandwich only the week before.

Suddenly I became afraid, more fearful with every step that Chogyal took into unknown territory. There might be no guillotine at the end of this particular journey, but for the first time I wondered, what if this were not a mistake? What if some plan had been agreed to with the Dalai Lama’s consent? Perhaps His Holiness had made some oblique remark his assistants had interpreted to mean that he’d rather not have me around anymore. What if I was to be demoted from His Holiness’s Cat to plain McLeod Ganj House Cat?

The area we were in now was rundown. Through the crack in the wood, I observed dirt pavements and barren gardens, pungent odors and the cries of children. Chogyal turned off the road and proceeded along a dirt path to an ugly concrete building. As he continued, I could just make out that we were in an open corridor with doors leading off both sides. Some of the doors were ajar, revealing rooms in which whole families were gathered, sitting on the floor around plates of food.

My captor fished a key out of his robe and unlocked a door, then stepped into a room and deposited the cage on the floor.

“Home sweet home,” he said cheerfully, unlocking the metal grill, lifting me out, and placing my small, quaking form on what was evidently his duvet. “You’ll have to stay with me, HHC, till the painters are finished,” he explained, stroking me in a way that suggested that instead of putting me through the most harrowing ordeal of my life, he had merely taken a 20-minute walk. “It shouldn’t be more than a week.”

A whole week!

“They’re repainting everything, walls, ceilings, window frames, and doors. By the time they’re finished, it will feel like new. In the meantime, you can have a holiday with me. And my niece, Lasya, will take care of you.”

A girl of about ten, with sharp eyes and dirty fingers, appeared from outside and knelt on the floor, where she began squealing at me in a high-pitched voice as though I were both stupid and hard of hearing.

Slinking to the top of the bed, ears flat back and tail limp, I crawled under the duvet. At least the smell of Chogyal on the bedclothes was familiar.

I took refuge in the darkness.

There I stayed for the next three days, sleeping away as many hours as I could. I emerged only to attend to the most urgent calls of nature, before returning to curl up in a miserable, fluffy ball.

Chogyal was away most of each day at work, and Lasya soon tired of trying to play with a cat who wouldn’t respond. Her visits became infrequent and brief. Gradually, the sounds of families going about their day and the cooking aromas became more familiar. After three days of semi-wakefulness in the semi-darkness I came to a recognition: I was bored.

So, on day four, when Lasya arrived late in the afternoon, I crawled out from under the duvet and hopped onto the floor for the first time. There we discovered a new game, quite by accident. As I brushed up against her right foot, her big toe slipped inside my left ear, the other toes remaining on the outside. Wiggling her toes, she improvised a delightful ear massage—I found myself purring gratefully. Neither the Dalai Lama nor any of his staff were in the habit of putting their big toes in my ear, but as I discovered now, the sensation was utterly delightful. Left ear was soon followed by right, and as I looked up into Lasya’s giggling face, I understood for the first time that my happiness didn’t depend on being in particular surroundings.

I made my way to the door, and into the corridor. With Lasya as my minder, I padded tentatively toward the back of the building. In the very next room a woman and three children sat on the floor, stirring a pot on a single burner and chanting some sort of nursery rhyme. Having listened to them for the past three days as they prepared a variety of meals, I was curious to finally see them. Unlike the clamorous demons of my imagination, they seemed smaller somehow and more ordinary.

The moment I appeared, they stopped what they were doing and turned to stare. No doubt news of my arrival had passed down the corridor. Were they somehow overawed at finding themselves in the presence of the Dalai Lama’s Cat? I felt sure they must be!

Eventually, one of the children, perhaps eight years old, made a move. Extracting a sliver of tender meat from the cooking pot, he blew on it to cool it before coming to offer it to me. I sniffed hesitantly. Café Franc’s filet mignon this was not. But I was hungry. It smelled strangely appetizing. And as I took the meat from his hand and chewed it contemplatively, I had to admit it packed a tasty punch.

Continuing on our way, Lasya and I headed across the backyard—a desolate stretch of bare earth—to a wall about three feet high. When I jumped on top of the wall, I was surprised to find myself looking across an open area to a soccer pitch in the distance. Two teams of teenagers were battling in the dust for possession of a ball fashioned out of scrunched-up plastic bags bound tightly together with twine. Now I understood where all the shouting and excitement I had heard under the duvet was coming from.

Lasya perched beside me to watch the match, her legs dangling over the wall. She seemed to know the players and occasionally cried out encouragement. Settling next to her, I watched the game unfold: it was my first soccer match, and compared to the sedentary pace of life at Jokhang, it was riveting.

I scarcely noticed that dusk was falling, until I looked up and saw candles and lamps being lit in the homes all around us. The aromas of a dozen meals wafted on the evening breeze, along with sounds of clinking dishes, laughter and squabbling, running water and TV. How very different all this was from the sights and sounds of my favorite perch in the window of His Holiness’s room. But I couldn’t deny there was a vibrant energy to this place where all of life was lived out in the open.

The sun slid below the horizon, and the sky grew darker. Lasya had long since wandered back to her family, leaving me perched on the wall, my paws tucked neatly underneath me.

This was when I became aware of a movement at the side of the building, a fluid shadow slipping effortlessly down the side of a 40-gallon drum. A cat! And not just any cat but one who was unusually big and muscular, with dark stripes vividly defined. I had no doubt at all he was the same magnificent tiger tabby I had first seen across the temple courtyard, by the green light of the market stall. How long he had been sitting on the drum watching me, I couldn’t guess. But his actions left me in no doubt about his interest.

Padding directly across the barren backyard from one side to the other, he ignored me completely, as if I didn’t exist. Could he have been more obvious?

Suddenly I was all a-flutter. To anyone looking on, I might appear to be a cat sitting placidly on a wall. But my thoughts and emotions were in thrilling turmoil. The proprietorial way the tabby had strolled across the yard made it clear that this was his domain. Having ventured as far away as Jokhang, he was evidently a cat of some standing. Sure, the mackerel tabby markings denoted humble origins. But his territory had expanded to an impressive size.

And he was making a play for me!

I had no doubt he would be back again. Not tonight, of course. That would be too obvious. But … tomorrow?

When Chogyal arrived in the corridor from work a short while later, Lasya seized his hand and led him out to see where I was sitting.

“Nice to see you outside, HHC!” Scooping me up, he tickled me under the chin. “Back to normal.”

I was experiencing many things at that moment. Normal, however, wasn’t one of them.

The next day I could barely wait for Lasya to arrive in the afternoon. I had spent all morning grooming myself so that my thick, white pelt positively glisten