Free Pinky!

It's Sunday night here in Bangalore, I'm cooking up a big pot of daal, and I can't stop thinking about stealing this little girl's cat. It was another three-day weekend, and although we took it easy and stayed around the neighborhood on Friday and Saturday, we decided to hike Nandi Hills today. The road close to Nandi is peppered with shacks, and the people who live in them often have little stands set up to sell fruit and snacks. As we passed one stand, I got a glimpse of a little orange kitten that appeared to be tied up, but our driver was going too fast for us to stop. I thought about that kitten the entire time we were walking around, and vowed to stop and see if he was still there on the way back. After walking around for a few hours, taking in the incredible view from the top, seeing the Nandi Temple, and hanging out with a GAZILLION monkeys, we got back in the car with a mission. Of course, since he was tied up, it wasn't entirely surprising that he was still there. We got out and I immediately was in cat heaven while Tim talked to the little kids who lived there. We found out that the cat's name is Pinky. The kids keep him tied by the neck to a wood pillar, and he didn't seem very into that at all. Although I got him to purr, he meowed pathetically the entire time we were there, and I think he was trying to tell me to steal him. I told Tim to go back this week and see how much the kids want for him. I'm pretty sure they would sell him to us for the right price. Poor Pinky is hungry and sad and covered in fleas and ear mites! I already have a new Indian name for him - Gulabi, which means "pink" in Hindi. I love Gulabi so much, that even this picture I took of a monkey eating a worm out of another monkey's butt isn't making my heart stop hurting.