Author: Sarla Chaturvedi

In the city of Mumbai, the cats had a building of their own- Kitty Villa. It was multi storied tower where each floor had four houses. On the 17th floor lived four cats- Frankie, Kitty Irani, Meow Khan and Bonnie.

These cats lived in luxurious apartments with modular kitchens and had entirely given up sneaking into people’s houses and drinking milk. They had also given up eating mice.

One morning, Bonnie had a sudden craving for halwa. She decided to make it out of wheat flour and pulled out all the flour she had in her kitchen. She decided to make a kilo of halwa and share it with the neighbours.

She gathered the rest of the ingredients. She pulled out a tin of ghee and all the sugar she had too. Since she was all out of cardamom and dry fruits, Bonnie stepped outside to go pick up the rest of the ingredients from the shop nearby.

As this happened, Frankie was reading the paper when he decided to make kheer for lunch. He sat there taking stock of all the items he needed.

‘The milk man delivered five liters of milk in the morning. The rice is in the pantry and so is the cardamom and if I’m correct, I had bought a kilo of sugar last week,’ he thought to himself and got up to start cooking.

When he gathered the ingredients, he realized that he had used up the sugar already and didn’t have any for the kheer. Not in the mood to go buy more sugar, Frankie decided to borrow some from the neighbours. He walked up to Bonnie’s house and rang the bell.

He waited for a while, but there was no response. He put his paw on the door to knock and the door opened. When he peered inside, it seemed like there was nobody there. Thinking that Bonnie was probably in the shower, he decided to help himself to the sugar.

He walked into the kitchen, picked up the sugar from the counter top and announced, “Miss Devi, I’m borrowing your sugar. I’ll buy you some more in the evening.” Saying so, he went back to his house, closing the door behind him.

When Bonnie came back with the ingredients, she was surprised to find the sugar missing. “I swear I had left the sugar on the counter when I left. Where did it go?” she asked herself and searched the entire house. Realising that she may have made a mistake, she stepped out once again to buy sugar.

Meanwhile, Meow Khan’s mouth was watering at the thought of hot, fresh puris. But his heart sank when he peered into the box where he kept the flour. Not only were there little bugs crawling everywhere, the flour smelled foul.

“How will I make puris now?” he asked himself. His plans of sharing the food with his neighbours had fallen through.

He decided to ask Bonnie if she had any flour. But, when he went over, the same thing that happened to Frankie happened too. He stepped inside and saw the flour on the kitchen counter and helped himself to all of it.

“I’m borrowing your flour. I’ll buy you some more in the evening,” he shouted to the empty apartment and went to his house.

When Bonnie returned with the sugar, she was confused. “Where did the flour go?” she asked the empty house. All the back and forth was making Bonnie hungry. But her will was strong and she was determined to make halwa. She stepped out once again.

Whether you’d call it a coincidence or just Bonnie’s luck, Kitty Irani also wanted to make halwa. She had all the ingredients and more. There was fresh flour, spices, dry fruits and he even had a lot of milk to use in place of water. But, when she opened the tin of ghee, the stench was unbearable.

“This ghee couldn’t possibly be good,” she said, crinkling her nose. “I know, I’ll ask Bonnie for some ghee,” she said and walked across the corridor.

When she went to her door, it was the same story once again. Nobody answered the doorbell and when she reached up to knock, the door swung open. Thinking Bonnie was taking a bath, she announced that she was taking the ghee and closed the door behind her.

As soon as Kitty closed her front door, the lift doors opened and Bonnie stepped out. She let herself in and found that the ghee was missing now. She was tired and hungry and wasn’t really up for another trip to the grocery store. 

“Looks like today’s not the day for halwa,” she said to herself and went in for a shower. She felt a little better and decided to take a nap when the doorbell rang. It was Frankie.

“Hi, I made some kheer for everybody. I had borrowed some sugar when you weren’t at home. I thought I should bring you some first,” he said.

As Bonnie took the kheer from Frankie, Meow Khan came to the door too. “Here are the puris I made for all of us. Thank you for lending me your flour,” he said.

The air was filled with the aroma of puris and kheer. Bonnie invited them both in. As they narrated their versions of the story, Kitty rang the bell and came in. She offered the bowl of halwa to Bonnie and thanked her for the ghee.

“Thank you guys so much,” said Bonnie. “I was feeling bad that I wasn’t able to eat halwa just a few minutes ago. Now, I have puris and kheer to eat too. Why don’t you bring all the food over? We’ll have lunch here.”

They all sat together and had the best lunch ever.