Delhiwale: A subway soul

Elderly subway guard Noor and his cat are missing. New guard Akbar takes care of the cat, who now roams freely, while Noor is hospitalized.

Where is Noor?

Akbar is the new guard at the subway. (HT Photo)

And where is his cat?

The elderly subway guard hasn’t been seen for a long time in this underground passage. He had been its guard-cum-unofficial custodian for many years, always sitting silently on one side of the subway with the day’s newspaper, next to a black-and-white cat. He in fact lived in the subway, and had a chair and a folding bed. He also occasionally administered a small stall of knickknacks for subway passersby.

All day long, the cat ambled about within the subway, sometimes climbing the staircase, and escaping into daylight. But she was a lazy cat, according to Noor, and spent most of her waking hours (as well as sleeping hours) curled up beside him, mewing whenever hit by hunger pangs.

During a long-ago conversation, the introvert Noor had agreed to recall the moment when he first encountered the cat. She was then a tiny kitten, lying unattended in the subway. She was “sobbing”, which prompted him to place a bowl of milk in front of her. The kitten never left the man’s side. Noor would daily give her milk, which he would buy from a Mother Dairy booth. He would also get her a bit of kaleji from a nearby meat shop.

But Noor is no longer seen in the subway. This afternoon, the cat too is missing.

The subway has a new guard (see photo).

Like Noor, Akbar too is from Bihar. He arrived two months ago. This afternoon, standing close to where Noor used to sit, he informs that Noor fell ill some months ago. “I don’t know the exact details, but he had become immobile, both his legs had to be bandaged, he had to be admitted to a hospital. Some weeks ago, I’m told, his brother came from Bihar and took him back to the village.”

Akbar, who was earlier a night-shift guard at the Cycle Market in Chandni Chowk, says he looks after the cat. “She must be loitering outside … I give her milk everyday, along with chicken pieces, which I get from a meat shop nearby… the meat shop is near a mithai shop, and sometimes I also give her small pieces of jalebi.”

Noor never named the cat. Akbar too hasn’t given the cat any name. “She is just a billi.”

Posing for a portrait, Akbar comments on the habits of the subway cat. His assessment differs from Noor who had called her lazy: “The billi is very quick, always running about… comes to me only when hungry…”