Dr. Sunil observes that this story suggests sadistic modes of ‘seeing’ and ‘turning’ people into monsters by a conspiring society and judging culture. An intense tale exclusively for Different Truths. 

Avni got hooked.

“A Catwoman?”

“Yes.”

“Possible, such a hybrid creature?”

“In a forest teeming with its native spirits, one comes across such creatures easily and frequently.”

Avni agreed with the source of this information. It was a rude revelation, in fact. But, sometimes a forest as a surreal setting, can make the urban visitor there to believe. 

Avni’s grandmother was from the hills of Kumaon. When she would visit her in a crumbling house on the edge of a cliff and a steep slope dropping down to a depthless gloom below, she was ready to believe anything her old granny would talk about the hills and the brooding forest behind the hamlet. In the nights, she often heard strange sounds and saw some fairies and witches peeping from behind the misty glass of a barred and closed window; things that vanished in the day-light.

Her dad was cynical: “Your romantic imagination!”. But every annual pilgrimage to her granny’s lonely cottage confirmed her lurking belief in the realms out there in the forests and wilderness.

After the death of granny, the visits stopped but her fascination with such creatures persisted, despite her background in science.

“Your dad’s dismissal proves nothing,’ granny once said. “There are other worlds that only the few can see.” 

And Avni believed her granny more than her fat and squinting dad, a bank officer in Kolkata.

“And, remember dear child, certain things can be seen only by the women,” said the granny in a mysterious tone and winked.

After reaching adulthood, Avni understood the profundity of this advice from a young widow who had raised her brood by selling herbal potions to the sick and read their future from their forehead lines.

Women have a different way of seeing!

How correct!

Returning to that forest was a tribute to her spirit.

And here she was being told about a creature called a Catwoman. 

Well, forests have their unpolluted secrets and “these are exposed to very few”, as granny had told her, years ago, sitting on the swing on a moon-lit early night of winter.

Those words rushed back.

So, it was the Catwoman of the forest calling!

So far, she had seen the Hollywood version of Catwoman. This was a desi version, ready to be unveiled through her.

Incredible! 

“Have you met her?” Avni asked the old tea vendor, a strong woman in her late 50s, busy making tea over a charcoal stove, alone in that thatched shop along a twisted road going further up to the town nestled in the trees.

“Yes, daughter. I have met her and found her amazing!”

Catwoman! 

Secretly, Avni wanted to be a Catwoman, challenging the male power pyramid with feline agility, authority and sensory/auditory skills; her avatar, complete with the bullwhip, claws and duct tape, out to subdue the rowdy males that stared lustily at the passing young women and hurling expletives at the shy maidens on the mean streets.

So, it is true – a Catwoman does exist!

It was her Eureka moment.

She wanted to hunt for this fabulous being, her province.

She travels to far-off places to find such tales of marvel. 

Avni documents urban legends for her popular YouTube channel: The Strangeness of the Mundane.

Her vlog is getting noticed; a few episodes, going viral.

The woman was full of warmth and a good narrator. She served the brown-and- sugary tea in an earthen cup. Anything hot would do in the extreme cold there— a sad and solitary spot; a strong wind singing in the pines, like the lament of a deserted wife. 

Avni had stopped at the corner tea-stall to relax and take pictures of the forest where she sensed some secrets buried in its primeval heart.

If old folks do not pass them on to the right audiences, these secrets will be forever lost.

She was keen to record such facts that operated in a special ecology, away from the commercial cities and their selfish pursuits of profits.

She ordered another cup to warm up and unwind from a long and demanding commute. 

It was an isolated place. Not many vehicles passed the steep roads. She could hear the forest whispering ancient truths to her attentive ears.

The wind had got its own rhythm.

“Tell me more about her, please,” Avni requested the author of this tale. “How did you come across such a peculiar creature?”

“The upper reaches of mountains and hills and jungle harbour such beings. They show themselves easily to the hill people and selectively to a few outsiders. If you believe in them, you can discover them near you. They are simple and trusting. Mean no harm. But humans are ugly and try to control or harm them. Bad! One should never harm God’s other children in non-human forms.” 

She sounded like granny – even her piping voice. For a second, Avni thought of her dead granny grinning in that broad face and wide cheeks and kind eyes.

Avni blinked.

The tea vendor returned.

“Right,” Avni said. “I agree with you, Aunt.”

A bond was immediately formed. 

“I have seen the other worlds unravelling here in the heart of this old forest. One thing I know. We are not the only people inhabiting earth. There are others also, more sensitive and intelligent than the humans.” The woman told her guest, eyes lighting up.

“Who else had seen them—such creatures and realms?” Avni asked.

“Many.”

“Like?”

“Homer.”

Avni was taken aback. “Homer? Who else?”

“Pu Song ling. Borges. Lewis Carroll. Marquez and Murakami. To name a few.”

“And?”

“Robert Dahl. C.S. Lewis. J.R.R. Tolkien. Stephen King. And…”

“And?”

“Poe.” 

Avni was speechless. “How do you know these names?”

“Why should I not?”

“Hmm. Bit far off from the civilisation…”

“Your notion of civilization. Not mine. For me, the forest is full of such creatures and ancient wisdom. It is a perfect civilization.”
“How do you read?” Avni persisted, sipping tea and nibbling biscuits, while a cold wind roared in the valley, intensifying a sense of overwhelming solitude. There was no traffic. Only the dappled sunlight – and song of birds and trees around – adding to the mystery and mystique of the forest as another realm, removed from reality of dead-end urban kind.

She could feel, first time, the native spirits lurking in the gloom. 

The woman smiled and brought out a tablet and a smartphone. “Tech! That is how.”

Avni bowed.

“And good translations. It is a tech-connected world now.” The woman smiled again.

Avni felt she was the new-millennium Alice staring into the eyes of a caterpillar. “Tell me Aunt about Catwoman, please.” 

 “It is a sad story.” The woman said.

“I am all ears.” 

The woman said with a long sigh, “It always fills me with sorrow, recounting it in great detail.”

Here, her version:

…Many years ago, in this hilly area, lived a merchant who travelled to exotic cities as far as Tashkent and Istanbul to sell spices and dry fruits and silk, along with his trusted caravan. A strapping man, moustachioed and bearded, a deft knife fighter, he lived life fully, enjoying drinks and songs of the whores in the evenings, after a long day’s hard work.

Once, in a feudal city of Asia, he took fancy to a young maiden of a poor family and married her by paying a fat dowry to her peasant parents. They willingly gave away that beautiful and innocent young maiden to that lusty man in his late 40s, saying farewell to the crying daughter who knew she was sold by her greedy parents and would never-ever see them, siblings, the city, and home again. 

She followed dutifully the new master who fully came to fully possess – by this exchange of a few gold coins and spices and silk cloth – her body and soul and ravished that poor lamb on a dark night, in a drunken stupor, in an inn full of other drunkards and their frightened slaves. The girl suffered the pain and the assault quietly, serving her owner and the lord, with a smile; carefully hiding tears and a heart that ached for lost freedom, childhood and family in that poor section of the big city, so as not to give offense to that smelly lout with roving eyes and restive hands.

“What happened to that child bride?” Avni asked.

“Listen patiently, dear niece to the rest of the tragic story of that pure and innocent girl.”

…once she reached the big house of the merchant, another fate awaited that ravaged beauty. His harem consisted of four wives and the sight of another addition made the overworked and lusterless wives jealous and insecure. The wife number one conspired with others and one night, plying their hot-blooded husband with drinks and spicy meats, informed him, that man with insatiable thirst for exotic drinks and a limitless hunger for tender human meat, the secret.

“She is, my lord and master, your new wife and our youngest sister, not a woman but a temptress out to deceive you. Beware of this she-devil,” she cooed, stroking his muscular body.

“What nonsense!” he yelled.

“She is a cat in the guise of a woman.”

“How do you know?” 

“We saw her change into a cat and then a cat woman, once you slept. Ask other wives. She is a threat to the family.”

The merchant, by now fond of his new bride, asked for proof.

Next night, the merchant retired early and asked not to be disturbed.

The young bride went into her room. The clever merchant and three women watched from a secret window that he had made in the wall of the rooms of each of his wives. Guided by the whispers of the three women, the shocked husband saw the bride turn into a cat and then a cat woman! 

Next day, before other wives, he demanded an explanation from that terrified bride who denied the charge vehemently.

“I saw with my own eyes,” screamed the drunk merchant, while senior wives laughed at her expense. “You turning into a Catwoman. You are a witch! Get out of my house!”

She cried and protested but the determined quartet of scheming rivals drove the innocent away into the forest, yelling, go away, she-devil!

She went reluctantly into the forest that willingly embraced the banished outcast…

“What happened after that?” Avni inquired. 

“She vanished. Then I met her in the city of Nainital…”

“What?” her jaw dropped.

The vendor smiled. “I was equally shocked by that unexpected sighting on a lonely promenade. She had materialized suddenly out of soft shadows between the lampposts.”
“What happened then?” Avni questioned the narrator, eyes wide. 

“She recognised me as I had given free tea and buns to that poor creature, while she stayed in the jungle alone; she was now a full Catwoman, agile and alert. She said, thank you for feeding me, dear sister and offering a loving sanctuary, while the hill folks baited me for a new avatar caused by a weak man and his treacherous wives. Then she vanished as swiftly as she had come, as some cops were headed in our way near the Lake.”
“Did you meet her again?”

“Yes. In Delhi. In a posh house. Lost as ever there.”
“Delhi, of all the places?” 

The vendor paused and then replied calmly, like her granny: “Dear Memsaab, there are more Catwomen in the city than in the forest.”

“What?” Avni shouted.

“Yes. Waiting to be seen…some languishing, some abandoned and some forever banished and lost, these branded ones for life by a conspiring culture responsible for their sad fate and transformation.”

Visuals by Different Truths

Dr. Sunil Sharma

Toronto-based author-academic-editor, Sunil Sharma has published 23 creative and critical books--- joint and solo. He edits Setu journal: https://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html For details, please visit the website: https://sunil-sharma.com

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