The lungi dance!

A good friend of mine and I were discussing cats and their interesting personality traits when I remembered a few incidents that happened or used to happen with regular frequency...

A momma cat had once decided to place a kitten of hers in my house. Yeah, unilaterally decided to increase the headcount at my place (forgive the HR terminology). This was when I was in second standard. A few impassioned pleas from me ensured that the kitten got it's appointment letter and confirmation immediately. So began the story.

The cat wasn't allowed into the house those days and was given it's own quarters in a wooden box mounted atop a cement stand in the garden, but, nevertheless enjoyed the warmer precincts found under the then newly purchased Premier Padmini at home.

An uncle of mine had come down on deputation for shortwhile and being the proactive kind offered to lock the gate every night. It would be useful to point out that this gentleman wasn't too pet friendly, he used to maintain a stoic indifference at best that he thought hid the underlying apathy (more antipathy than apathy). Every night would see a certain (what I thought was hillarious) performance with a few variations thrown in for variety.

He would descend down the steps into the garden, bedecked in a lungi, gingerly holding a Navtal lock and a key. He would very discretely (or so he thought) look around for the fur-red fiend and start off towards the gate. His fiend had in it's mind decided that the lungi was it's plaything. So began the performance (with me peering out of the window and giggling as silently as possible).

It would begin with a soft 'mew' from the cat who would be seated strategically under the car. This would trigger a reflex 'look all around' response from unc. Sensing a passing of danger, he would gleefully rush towards the gate and lock it, returning slowly between the car and the compund wall.

The meow would be repeated at this point and would be followed by a meow meow alongwith a sincere "I am a friend not a fiend" look on the face while trying to play with the lungi. The poor chap (unc) used to be terrified and reply with a shoo shoo. The script would go like this:

Wraaoooum
Ay hrmmggmm (done with a closed mouth)

Meow?
Shoo shoo

Mew mew (tempo picked up)
Go, go away

The cat used to make strategic intrusions near the 'lungi territory' which left the poor guy totally go bonkers with terror writ all over his face.

By the time unc reached the door, the cat had had its exercise for the day and the grr grr s were louder from unc than all the tom cats in the neighbourhood algebraically summed.

Post script:
Uncle's family landed up in Bangalore the next year and aunt adopted a cat who had unrestricted entry to all areas of his house. Poor guy!

Continuing ta(i)les:
The following incident happened with the same cat, and included my cousin as a stakeholder.

The guy (a few months older than me) was 'instructed' by his mom - "no touching the cat with hands". Displaying a rare legal competency at that age of 8, he probably read the instruction carefully and decided to touch the cat anyways, but with a newspaper covering his hands.

Off he went with the day's newspaper, at top speed, trying to befriend the cat making all kinds of "I have some food for you" noises. Information overload and dissonance was writ large on the cat's physiognomy since the poor thing only saw a nut rushing towards it with a huuuuuge newspaper in both hands and yet making friendly noises!

The chase continued for a few minutes all over the garden, under the coffee shrub, across the hibiscus plant (where the editorial came to rest) until the guy spotted a rather large spider. That was enough for his to land up on his mom's lap, a whimpering poor kid!!

The cat was quite relieved as well.

The newspaper was then retrived from the garden and the editorial columns had a generous coating of the 'friendly neighborhood' bandicoot's intestinal ourpourings.

~ Siddhu

What is it?

What is it...

with HR professionals and Cats?

The wicked VP - HR in Dilbert is a cat.

I am a HR guy, I love cats.

This is much like the conversation I had the other day with a researcher. Helped me get my frame in place.

My thought was a corollary of an article in TOI. The article spoke about employees with a 'bad' attitude. Out of my experience, I knew that more often than not, this titled is splotched on employees who seem to have a low tolerance to show of authority. Sounds familiar? You bet!!

Read up on Hofstede's 5 dimensions and one finds that he defines power-distance bottom up not top down. That is, the tolerance that a person / society has towards others exhibiting power-distance. I have put it very loosely described. Read up more on what he has written when you have time.

Coming back, I proposed a hypothesis on my thought - employees branded as having 'bad attitude' more often than not seem to have a low power distance. The researcher's perspective on this disproved it in a minute. How? Think about it and leave a comment. Will tell you if you are on track.

Siddhu