Grandma, I will arrive back home by four o’clock today... I got a little busy, that’s why I couldn’t inform you sooner.”

“If you don’t call and tell me you are coming at least a day in advance, how will I prepare your favourite dishes, my dear?” his grandmother asked a little angrily.

“It was a holiday that came through unexpectedly... I will tell you everything once I’m home.”

Fueled by the happiness of seeing her grandson after three years, the old woman, like a machine whirring to a start, opened up his room and began cleaning.

“Still, if only he had called and given me a day’s notice, I would have at least been able to clean out his room. What’s to be done about him now? He’s always been like this...” Grandma muttered to herself as she cleaned out the room.

“Grandma, didn’t I tell you from the beginning not to make anything?” The man questioned her as he stepped into the house and gave her a peck on the forehead.
“Are you telling me that you’ve travelled this far just to go lie down? No, that’s not acceptable” and like that all the delicacies that were laid out on the small dining table started arriving on his plate, one by one.

“You can go out and all that after you’ve eaten your fill and rested a little.”
At night, they walked slowly through the nearby town.

“This is the first time I’ve stepped out into the town after your mother and father passed away,”Grandma said, looking at him. When she didn’t hear any reply from him, she began again, “Besides, all the city life here is a big bore to me. As soon as the sun rises, the hullabaloo begins, you wouldn’t even be able to tell if they are walking or running in all their hurry... and if you run into people, nobody has the time to talk to each other, why, people don’t even know who their neighbours are.”

“Haa, that’s fresh,Grandma. If you feel like this about this little town, then what would you say about the city where I work?” he asked.
“No matter what, it will never be like our little villages,” his grandmother insisted. 

“All the people we get to know since childhood, our usual routes, the trees, the songs of birds that we hear when we wake up, reading under the shade of a big tree... Oh, I cannot imagine leaving all that behind. But I guess it comes down to personal preferences, right?”

“Looks like the writer from St. Annie’s College has been revived again,” he looked at her and laughed warmly. “I have bought some books for you to read,Grandma , I’ll give them to you once we get back home.”

In the morning, feeling something heavy on his feet, the man woke up with a start to find sitting on his bed a white haired cat with a red collar that had a bell sewn into it.
“Grandma, why is there a cat here?”

 “Ah, that’s our Jimbru. He usually comes and sits at my feet before dawn breaks, but since I had gotten up early today, he’s found his way to you.”

“Jimbru? Isn’t that the nickname my friends had for me when I was younger? How did you know about that name?” He asked with wonder.

“Is it not because I know the name that I call him by that now?”

He laughed. “Grandma, do you know how I got that name? A long time ago, my teacher Mary was telling us the story of a king and a genie. Before she began, she asked the class if anyone knew what the name of the genie was. In my excitement, I raised my hands and screamed ‘Jimbru’, and let’s just say that it turned out to be a silly thing to do... the genie’s name was something else.”

Grandma could not help but laugh. “Say, why don’t you go visit some of those old friends of yours? 

Many of them have moved away from here. But don’t you remember Jacob and Mathew? They’re both still here. Whenever I run into them, they ask after you.”

“Right, I’ll see them sometime, but first, let’s move this cat out of the house. Look at all the hair it’s leaving around.”

“After you go, there will be nobody else in this house with me but Jimbru. Where are you going to move him?”
“We can leave him on the verandah, and feed him there as well. Don’t let him come inside the house.”
“Oh I always knew you never liked cats,” Grandma grew despondent.

He picked up the cat and took him outside, while the cat meowed at Grandma as though to tell her that he had been kicked out.
The days passed by slowly.

“Grandma, a work related emergency has come up, and I have to go back today itself.”
“Don’t you have another week before your leave is over?”Grandma asked, wrinkling her forehead.
“Yes, but what can I do? I have to return, and I have to get ready now.”

“I’m making food just for you, wouldn’t it be better to eat that and then leave at the very least?”

“Ohh, I don’t think so. I will only be able to reach back there by morning if I leave right now.”
An hour later, Grandma’s house was silent again.

“Now you don’t need to sleep outside all alone anymore. The person that kicked you out is not here anymore.”Grandma had been muttering to herself inside the house while bringing a can of cat food out onto the verandah. 

But Grandma’s cat was not there. Holding the can in her hands,Grandma stepped out and looked everywhere, calling out Jimbru... Jimbru!

A small distance away, a crowd had gathered on the side of the road.
“What happened?”Grandma asked.

“Oh, nothing, looks like a cat jumped in front of a car.” On hearing this,Grandma 
began walking faster.

“The cat was limping... some stray dog must have bitten it last night.”
“Is it still alive?” Somebody else asked.
“No, the poor thing died. Let’s bury it a little farther from here,” someone else
chimed in.

“No, you can leave it in front of my house, I will bury it myself.”Grandma said, her
voice quivering.

Time continued to pass slowly.Grandma was sitting in front of her house, staring at the cat food, while the food she had made for her grandson sat on the small dining table inside the house, growing cold.