Topi

Day before yesterday Topi passed away in her sleep. Topi was Sheena’s pet hamster. She was almost 2 years and died due to old age. An average life of a hamster is eighteen months to three years depending on the breed. She was already two years in the house.

Topi was actually a substitute for Sheru or lets say a dog in general. Sheena wanted a dog two years back but nobody in the house were comfortable with the idea of having a dog as a pet but Sheena was persistent. She finally settled for a Hamster as a pet.

Hamsters are easy to maintain. They have a small cage and once you arrange for their food and water and grass, they pretty much keep to themselves. Hamster come from the family of rodent and are similar to mouse. I am frightened of mouse or was it rats. I am not so sure. But when my dad sat in our shop there were a lot of rats in the shop.

These rats would run around the shop making me jump or stand with a stick in my hand, completely terrified. Mouse are much smaller. I had a mouse once in the house in Amsterdam. Even now I saw a mouse in the house hiding behind the cupboard.

Imagine the surprise and the horror when I first had Topi in my hand just because Sheena insisted. But she was so soft and small and delicate that in a few moment, I was not so frightened by her. She explored, ran and smelled my hand. I was scared that I would drop her.

Topi had a assumed existence in the house. She was there but not there. I mean she was like present for Sheena and Ranjana but for the rest of us, I guess she was Sheena’s pet and that’s all. There was no sense of attachment with her like we have with Sheru now. It may be because that her cage was somewhere on the window sill and we would never glance there.

However she was the center of attraction for sometime when guest would find this unusual pet in the house. Sheena hated it when everybody called her chooiya (slang for mouse in Hindi). She was a Hamster and was to be strictly referred to be as Hamster.

Hamster are very impatient creature and need a lot of exercise. Also they are nocturnal creature. Combine the two characteristics and you have trouble. Almost all hamster cages have a drum/wheel in which the hamster runs. So when we are ready to relax for the day, Topi would wake up and start running in the drum.

Hamster have sharp teeth and they have to bite something to keep them sharper. The easiest target would be the plastic drum. After sometime, topi had cut a the drum in different places that it would not roll. So a new metal drum was brought for her so that she would not cut into it.

For many nights, we heard a squeaking noise from the metal drum. Just as the whole house would fall silent, Topi would get up, all freshen up from her beauty ‘day’ sleep and then start her routine exercise of running. She did not care when the metal drum would make the irritating squeaking noise all night long. It was not long when the metal drum was replaced by the plastic drum again.

After Sheru’s arrival, her importance did diminish a little. Sheru would sit on the window sill next to her cage and sometimes they would communicate. Sometimes Vijay’s mother would talk to her. Sheena would talk to her as if she understood everything.

Yesterday Sheena was the one who found out that Topi had died. She cried a lot. Her next concern was about Sheru. She is very much attached to Sheru. Its amazig how pets form a way of our life even though we do not communicate in the same language.

The good thing she passed away peacefully

Rest in peace, Topi!

Update: Today the cage was occupied by the next stunner, Sunheri. She is named after the famous character from Dhoom 2 played by the sexy beautiful Aishwarya Rai. The hamster Sunheri is no less that a show stopper herself. She has an excellent figure giving competition to everone and I will be posting her picture soon.