The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Art of Purring (5 page)

“He’ll get a surprise all right,” agreed Sam. “The biggest take for a single night since the café opened. And it has turbocharged everything since. The whole place has become more vibrant. There’s more of a buzz.”

“I’ve thought that, too,” said Serena. “But I wondered if I was the only one.”

“No, the place has changed,” Sam insisted, holding her eyes for a full two seconds before breaking his gaze. “You’ve changed, too.”

“Oh?” she said, smiling. “How?”

“You’ve got this … energy. This j-joie de v-vivre.”

Serena nodded. “I do feel different. I’ve been thinking about how in all those years of managing some of the most upscale restaurants in Europe, I don’t think I ever had as much fun as I did last Wednesday night. I never would have believed it could be so wonderfully satisfying!”

Sam reflected for a moment before observing, “As that psychologist said the other day, sometimes it’s hard to predict what will make us happy.”

“Exactly. I’m beginning to wonder if being head chef at one of London’s top restaurants really
is
what I want to do next.”

I was looking at Sam as she said this and observed the change in his expression. A gleam came into his eyes.

“If I go back to doing the same thing,” continued Serena, “it will probably produce the same result.”

“More stress and b-burnout?”

She nodded. “There are rewards, too, of course. But they’re very different from the ones here.”

“Do you think it was cooking for family and friends that made the difference?” Sam suggested. Then, flashing a mischievous glance he added, “Or was it about awakening the
vindaloo
within?”

Serena chuckled. “Both. I’ve always adored curries. Even though they’ll never be haute cuisine, I love cooking them because of the many flavors, and they’re so nourishing. But as well as that, it felt as if last Wednesday was really special for people.”

“I agree,” said Sam. “The place had a great vibe.”

“There’s something very fulfilling when you can do what you really care about, and it’s appreciated by others.”

Sam looked pensive before putting down his mug, rising from the sofa, and going to a bookshelf. He returned with a paperback copy of
Man’s Search for Meaning,
by the Austrian psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. “What you just said reminded me of something,” he said, opening the book at its preface. “‘Don’t aim at success,’” he read. “‘The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue … as the unintended side effect of one’s dedication to a course greater than oneself.’”

Serena nodded. “In a very small way, I think that’s what I’m discovering.” For a moment they held each other’s eyes. “And in the strangest of ways.”

Sam was curious. “How do you mean?”

“Well, the whole idea of an Indian banquet only happened because of a chance conversation I had with Kusali. And
that
only happened because I found little Rinpoche stranded.”

Sam knew about the afternoon I had been trapped on the wall. There had been much speculation about how I had ended up there, none of it correct.

“You might say that all of this only came about because of Rinpoche,” she said, gazing down adoringly and stroking me.

“Rinpoche, the catalyst,” observed Sam.

As the two of them chuckled, I thought how no one, least of all me, could ever have guessed at the chain of events that would be triggered by my decision that Monday afternoon to turn left instead of right when I left the café. Nor would any of us have believed what was still to come. For what had happened so far turned out to be only the beginning of a much bigger story—a story in which many dimensions of happiness were to emerge as unintended but most rewarding side effects.

Unpredictable? Most certainly. Enlightening? Indubitably!

C
HAPTER
T
WO

What makes you purr?

Of all the questions in the world, this is the most important. It is also the great leveler. Because no matter whether you are a playful kitten or a sedentary senior, a scrawny alley Tom or a sleek-coated uptown girl, whatever your circumstances you just want to be happy. Not the kind of happy that comes and goes like a can of flaked tuna, but an enduring happiness. The deep-down happiness that makes you purr from the heart.

Only a few days after the Indian banquet, I made another intriguing discovery about happiness. Midway through a glorious Himalaya morning—blue skies, fluting birdsong, the invigorating scent of pine—I heard unfamiliar sounds coming from the bedroom. Hopping off my sill, I went to investigate.

Chogyal was supervising a spring cleaning in the Dalai Lama’s absence. My second-favorite monk was standing in the center of the room overseeing one workman who was up a ladder, unhooking the curtains, while another was perched on a stool giving the light fixture a good wipe.

My relationship with Chogyal went through a subtle change every time His Holiness traveled. In the mornings, when he arrived at work, he would come through to the Dalai Lama’s quarters just to see me, spending a few minutes brushing my coat with my special comb and talking to me about that day’s events, a reassurance I appreciated after spending the night alone.

Similarly, before he left work at night, he would ensure that my biscuit bowl was filled and my water replenished, then take time to stroke me and remind me how much I was loved, not only by His Holiness but by everyone in the household. I knew that Chogyal was trying to make up for the Dalai Lama’s absence, and his kind heart endeared him to me all the more.

But this morning I was alarmed by what he was doing to our bedroom. One of his underlings was gathering items for washing when Chogyal gestured to my beige fleece blanket, on the floor under a chair. “That one,” he said. “It hasn’t been washed for months.”

No, it hadn’t—deliberately! Nor would it be, if His Holiness had anything to do with it.

I meowed plaintively.

Chogyal turned to see me sitting in the door with a pleading expression in my eyes. However, for all his warmth of heart, Chogyal was not very perceptive when it came to cats. Unlike the Dalai Lama, who would have known exactly why I was unhappy, he mistook my meow as one of general distress.

Reaching down, he drew me into his arms and began to stroke me.

“Don’t worry, HHC,” he said reassuringly, using my official designation, short for His Holiness’s Cat, at the exact moment that the cleaner seized the blanket and made off with it in the direction of the laundry. “Everything will be back, perfectly clean, before you know it.”

Didn’t he realize that was exactly the problem? I struggled from his arms, even extending my claws to show I meant business. After a few moments of unpleasantness, he put me down.

“Cats,” he said, shaking his head with a bemused smile, as though I had spurned his affections for no good reason.

Returning to the windowsill, my tail hanging dejectedly, I noticed how unpleasantly bright the day had become. Outside, the birds squawked loudly, and the stink of pine was as strong as bathroom disinfectant. How could Chogyal not see what he was doing? How could he not realize that he had just ordered the obliteration of the last surviving link I had to the very cutest kitten that ever lived, my darling little Snow Cub?

Four months earlier, as a result of a dalliance with a ruggedly handsome if ultimately unsuitable back-alley Tom, I had given birth to a gorgeous litter of four. The first three to emerge into the world were just like their father: dark, robust, and male. It was, in fact, a source of general amazement that such vigorous specimens of tabby, soon sporting mackerel stripes, could have emerged from my petite and refined, if delightfully fluffy body. The fourth and final kitten was, however, in every way her mother’s child. The last to make her way onto the yak blanket on His Holiness’s bed in the early hours one morning, she was born so small she could easily have fit into a tablespoon. Initially we all feared for her survival, and to this day I’m convinced it was only thanks to the Dalai Lama that she made it.

Tibetan Buddhists regard His Holiness as an emanation of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion. While I live in the presence of his compassion all the time, I never felt it directed so powerfully as in our hour of greatest need. As my little baby—a tiny, pink, wrinkled speck with a few wisps of whiteness—struggled for her life, His Holiness watched over us, reciting a mantra softly under his breath. With the spotlight of his attention focused on us until the little one recovered from the birth process, it was as though no bad could come to us. We were bathed in the love and well-being of all the Buddhas. When finally she found her way to a teat and began to suckle, it was as though we had passed through a storm. Thanks to His Holiness’s protection, all would be well.

For several weeks before the kittens were born, as news of my pregnancy had spread, His Holiness’s office had received entreaties to adopt my kittens from monks across the courtyard at Namgyal Monastery, from friends and supporters elsewhere in India and the Himalayas, and from as far afield as Madrid, Los Angeles, even Sydney. Had I been able to deliver enough of them, my progeny could have been living on every continent of the world.

For the first few weeks my babies were fragile and dependent. After a month, my three boisterous sons were ready to try out canned kitten food, although I still had to nurse my little girl, who was so much tinier than the others. By eight weeks, the boys were running wild—scampering up curtains, tearing through His Holiness’s apartment, springing to attack the ankles of unsuspecting passersby.

Before any VIP visitor arrived, the apartment would have to be swept for kittens. Chogyal, who although highly intelligent was not the most coordinated of humans, would fumble about on his hands and knees, tripping over his own robes, as he chased after one or another of my elusive sons. Tenzin—older, taller, and worldly wise—would remove his jacket with some ceremony before adopting a strategic approach, creating a distraction to flush the kittens out of wherever they were hiding and then seizing them when they least expected.

The turning point came with the arrival of one particular visitor. As His Holiness’s Cat I have learned to be the very model of discretion when it comes to celebrity visits. Far be it from me to utter the name of any such VIP. Let me just say that this particular guest was a household name, a movie star, an Austrian-born bodybuilder who not only became one of the hottest tickets in Hollywood but went on to be governor of California.

There. That’s as far as I’m prepared to go. I couldn’t possibly say more without giving the game away.

The afternoon that he arrived in the back of a shiny SUV, Chogyal and Tenzin had undertaken their now-routine kitten check, securing the three tabby kittens in the staff room. Or so they thought.

Picture, if you will, the following scene. The distinguished guest arrived—handsome, charismatic, and towering over the Dalai Lama. As is Tibetan tradition in meeting a high lama, the guest bowed and presented His Holiness with a white scarf, called a
kata,
that His Holiness in turn draped around the VIP’s neck. Everything was smiles and serenity—the usual case when the Dalai Lama is involved. Then the VIP guest stepped beside his host for the official photograph.

A fraction of a second before the photographer snapped the picture, my three sons launched what can only be described as a full frontal assault. Two of them burst out from behind an armchair and charged directly up the visitor’s legs. The third sank his claws and teeth into the visitor’s left ankle.

The visitor doubled over with shock and pain. The photographer let out a screech of alarm. For a few stunned moments time seemed to stop. Then the first two kittens scampered back down the VIP’s legs while the third darted away without so much as an
“Hasta la vista,
baby.”

His Holiness, the only one who seemed unsurprised by the feline security lapse, apologized profusely. Recovering his poise, the VIP guest seemed to find the whole thing quite amusing.

I don’t think I will ever forget the sight of what happened next: the Dalai Lama was gesturing in the direction of the miscreant kittens, while one of the world’s most famous action heroes lay on his stomach, trying to scoop the little wretches from their hiding place under a sofa.

Yes, it was agreed by everyone a short while later, more suitable homes had to be found for the male kittens. But the little one, delicate and docile, a miniature version of her Himalayan mother? In their hearts I don’t think anyone wanted to think about her leaving. For the moment, she was safe.

Like many felines, I am a cat of many names. At the Himalaya Book Café, I had been named Rinpoche. In official circles at Jokhang, where His Holiness the Dalai Lama is referred to as HHDL, I acquired the formal title HHC for His Holiness’s Cat. My little girl was soon to follow, being given the official appellation HHK—His Holiness’s Kitten. But the name that mattered most to me was the one given to her by His Holiness himself. A day or two after the boys were gone he lifted my baby up in his hand and gazed into her eyes with that look of pure love that makes your whole being glow.