Community report: Cat under a hot engine hood

One morning I was leaving home for work. I sat in my car and started the engine. The moment I did that, I heard a strange sound and saw some smoke coming from the engine and it smelt like something was burning. All this happened in less than a minute.

I immediately switched off the engine as I had never heard such a sound coming from the car engine before. I was perplexed! I got out of the car and opened the hood. I could not really see anything until I noticed towards the lower end of the engine, lying in a corner, the dead face of a small kitten.

Dead kitten

I could not bear to see the sight and was shocked. I pushed myself backwards and felt nauseated. The sight was horrible. Luckily a street cleaner was close by, so I requested him to help me and remove the dead kitten and all its fur and clean the blood splattered all over the engine. I did not have the courage to even have a second look.

The whole morning I was depressed due to the incident. This was the same kitten for whom I used to buy milk whenever I used to see him around our building. I was greatly touched by this incident, which lead to the loss of a life.

Since the weather is cooler these days, cats and kittens tend to crawl into engines of cars and try to shield themselves from the cold wind. I would like to request all readers to kindly leave your house just two minutes earlier than normal and take a look under the hood of your cars. If there are any cats hiding there, you could drive them out.

Save a life

People can also just tap on the hood of the car and scare the felines away. This might save a life. On another note, I request the owners of all Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) who have children to take a complete look around their cars just before they start the engine and reverse the vehicle.

There have been some incidents where parents have accidentally hit children as the young ones are not tall enough to be noticed while reversing. The message is simple — prevention is better than the cure.

— The reader is a sales manager

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