2026-04-18essay

My Girlfriend's Cat

My girlfriend is an MBBS undergrad at GDMC, Dehradun. She is kind. She is poised. She understands everything. The best thing about her is the empathy she brings to the table when she talks.

One fine day, at her college hostel, she found some cats — a mother and her kittens — in a wooden box lying in a corner. The mother cat had gone. Only the kittens were left. My girlfriend took one home. She fought with her own mother to keep her. The kitten was maybe a month old, maybe ten days — hard to tell. She started taking care of her. She named her Billu, very amusingly.

My girlfriend is soft-hearted, and a good person. The problem with good people is that other people sometimes take advantage — use your kindness for their own benefit, because they are selfish and you help them out of nowhere. She goes through that sometimes. I understand why. It's because she is genuinely good.

Through all of that, the bond between Billu and my girlfriend stayed pure. They were good to each other even while the rest of the world — and her friends — were using my girlfriend's kindness to get their own work done. She looked after Billu. Billu became an inside part of her life.

Seeing this made me very happy, because I'm in a long-distance relationship with her. It made me feel good that someone was taking care of her when I couldn't — that someone actually cared. Even if Billu was mischievous, even if she was irritating sometimes, she was the one there when I wasn't.

Over six months, that bond became something real.

One day, Billu went through some hormonal changes — she wanted kittens of her own, with a male cat in the society. My girlfriend didn't want that. She didn't want Billu to end up like Billu's own mother — abandoned with a box full of kittens. So she took Billu to the vet and asked about having her spayed, or something that would quiet the hormones. It was done. They carried on being good to each other.

One evening, my girlfriend called me. "Hey, my health is not good." I asked why. I stayed on the phone with her — half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, I don't remember exactly. It was a very bad day, and I felt terrible through all of it.

She told me she was vomiting, not feeling well. I asked if her mother could bring medicines. Her mother had gone to the medical store. I said — okay, rest, wait for her to come back. Forty minutes. Fifty. An hour. Her mother still hadn't returned. I got angry. "Should I order it for you? It'll come in ten minutes." I ordered it. The medicines arrived in twelve. She went to the door, took them. I told her to take her dose and rest.

What happened next was very sad. I had never expected it, and to my surprise, I was not able to do a thing. The biggest guilt of my life will always be that, in that moment, I couldn't do anything.

My girlfriend walked to the kitchen for water. She felt a chakkar — a wave of dizziness — and she fell. Her head hit the wall. She started bleeding. She was crying.

I was still on the phone, listening, thinking. Then screaming on my end — gun, gun, gun, gun, what happened? What happened? Where are you? Listen. There was nothing on the other end. I felt helpless.

Billu was there. Something happened. I don't know what. My girlfriend doesn't remember either.

I cut the call. I tried to call again. I felt helpless. I couldn't do anything from where I was. Five minutes later her mother got home. My girlfriend was taken to the hospital. Billu was still at home — alone.

Her recovery took four days. The whole family stayed at the hospital; no one went back home. During those four days, Billu ate a piece of rubber. She fell out of a window. Somehow, she died.

When my girlfriend came home, she started looking for her Billu. She couldn't find her. Her mother and her brother went looking. They found Billu in the backyard. She was gone.

Then the strange part. Billu had eaten that rubber before all of this. The day before my girlfriend fell and hit her head, Billu — who had her own room, who never came into my girlfriend's room, who never slept with her — was in my girlfriend's room. She jumped. She hit the wall. On the exact spot where, the very next day, my girlfriend's head would hit.

My girlfriend's mother believes Billu took all of it on herself — the pain, the poison, whatever was coming for my girlfriend. As someone who believes in science, I can't quite believe that. But there is something in animals we don't understand. Something they understand about us.

I'm sad about two things.

1. I'll always carry the guilt of not being able to do anything in that moment.
2. The bond my girlfriend had with Billu was one of a kind. I don't know how she'll ever have that again with another animal. I'll still try — I'll insist she gets another cat — but what she had with Billu will always be remembered. Always cherished.

To Billu —

I miss you. You will always be missed. If in some multiverse, in some universe, it's true that animals know what's coming for the people they love, and they take it on themselves: believe me, we love you.

I hope you come back to our family as a human next time. Wherever you are — God, thank you.