Delhiwale: Timekeeper’s cat

Sir Syed Street is never still

Sir Syed Street is never still. The Old Delhi gali is always packed with people, fruit stalls and small shops. An upper-floor restaurant with large glass windows offers a clear view of the decorative lanterns hanging inside. Old balconies and spiralling staircases overlook the street. Signs, wires, carts and shopfronts compete for attention.

Throughout the conversation, the cat remained motionless.

But this evening, the most arresting sight is inside a little wayside shop.

A brown-and-black striped cat is asleep on the glass counter of Elahi Watch Maker. Beneath the glass are rows of watches in their boxes. Behind the sleeping cat, watches and clocks cover the walls. The cat has stretched its paws across the counter, unconcerned by the street’s bustling chehel-pehel.

Shopkeeper Irfan Elahi points out that the cat is not a billi, but a billa—a male cat. He says that the cat lives on the street. Yet every morning, soon after Irfan opens the shop at around nine, the cat appears. Then he stays.

“I think the cat feels at home here,” Irfan says. For much of the day, the cat curls up on the counter. Some customers find him cute; others are a little wary. Irfan is quick to reassure them. “This cat never bites,” he says. “He sometimes looks as if he will scratch, but he doesn’t. Never.”

The cat has just been fed. Irfan buys the food from a nearby cat food shop. He says feeding the cat gives him a sense of calm. He also feeds birds on his rooftop at Gali Shakti Mandir. “It is a karam to feed bezuban (speechless) beings,” he says.

Throughout the conversation, the cat remains motionless. Once, he lifts his head slightly in his sleep, then settles back down. Irfan points to the cat’s fur. “Colour and the design is like tiger. So nice. Everybody likes to look at him.” An elderly man walks up to the shop and gently runs his palm upon the cat, who doesn’t stir even slightly.

Irfan says the cat seems to know when it is time to come to the shop, turning up every morning around 9.30. The cat, however, doesn’t know how to quit the shop. At closing time, Irfan has to literally push him out of the counter. “Phir bhagana padta hai,” he says. The billa then goes into the streets of Old Delhi.