Every cat has its day

Recently, residents of the New Dubai communities were warned to take care as a jaguar was supposedly roaming around the area.

Social media was flush with pictures and videos of the big cat which had been caught on a cctv camera. Dubai Municipality was immediately informed and they sent a team to hunt down and capture the wild animal.

Now, let me tell you, after months of staying at home and rarely venturing out, this kind of news created ripples of excitement within the community. The bored residents of these areas had a break from the tedium of WFH. The wildcat was supposed to have moved location, from the Springs 3 area to other nearby ones.

We all secretly hoped it would be caught near our place of residence. We could then brag to our friends and relatives about how close we were to being mauled by a wild animal.

Joke about a lost cat

In the meantime, we exchanged updates about the big cat; rumours abounded. Yes, it was caught. No, not yet caught. There was even a joke about a lost cat with a pink dog leash in its mouth.

When I went for a walk, I kept imagining eyes watching me from the leafy branches of the neem trees and date palms, waiting to pounce! A friend noticed what looked like claw marks on her wall. Yet another noticed big paw-prints in the flower-beds. Wherever we looked, we saw signs — or imagined we saw signs.

This kind of illusion has a scientific name. It is called the Frequency Illusion. Apparently, there are not many scientific papers on this topic, but it is more that your attention is likely to go to something which is constantly on your mind.

The ‘frequency illusion’ has a more high-sounding name, the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. (Baader-Meinhof is a notorious gang in West Germany, and to explain how this phenomenon acquired this name is the topic for another Cuff).

Frequency Illusion

Now, these kinds of imagined sightings are not unusual. Many years ago, the capital city of Delhi was awash with rumours of a ‘Monkey Man.” This creature was supposedly four or five feet tall, black and hairy, and, in popular imagination, had eyes that glowed red and wore a steel helmet. The Monkey Man frequented the poorer areas where residents slept on rooftops to beat the torpid summer heat, and were supposedly attacked in their sleep.

This creature was, of course, never found. Perhaps this too is an example of ‘Frequency Illusion’ reaching the proportions of mass hysteria.

Going back to our Big Cat, after a few days, we learnt that the it was indeed just a ‘big’ cat, a well-fed pet cat that had been zoomed into. Obviously, its owner must have pampered it silly, giving it many extra treats. The municipality gave up the hunt after reassuring the public that no wild animal was at large.

Now that things have quietened down and life has gone back to its boring tedium, I kind of miss having this excitement.

Now, I’m thinking of that black cat who’s laughing away, and telling all its cat friends about how we humans were frightened silly by a cctv image.

And for a short while, all the cats, big and small, pondered over how they had full reign and could roam around with gay abandon as humans and dogs played it safe and took short walks or just stayed at home.

Yes, every cat- like every dog — has its day.

Padmini Sankar is a Dubai-based freelance writer and author. Twitter: @paddersatdubai