When I reached home back from my office that evening, I was startled to see my wife and children feeding milk to an emaciated kitten. It was evident that this kitten was abandoned by its owner and had not eaten anything for days. I got angry when I saw my children rapturously looking at the kitten licking the milk hungrily. The thought of the potential pranks the kitten is going to do inside and outside my house infuriated me. During my childhood days, I too have grown a kitten. But, that is another case. Now, I need to consider my children’s security. So, I insisted to throw the kitten out of my house and scolded my wife for giving milk to it. “What if the kitten claws our children when they play? What if it poops in our courtyard? What if it sleeps on our bed?” I asked my wife embarrassingly.
“Please Pappa, please let us raise this poor kitten. We have given him a name – Picaccio!” said both my sons in unison and began to insist to let it stay in our house. They were on the verge of tears. I can convince the elder one with my logical explanations. But, the younger one is not old enough to understand the potential troubles the kitten may create. Finally, I agreed to let them keep the kitten in the house with certain conditions.
Picaccio slept on our verandah and ate from behind our kitchen. During the day, it played with my sons in the courtyard. Days passed. Nourished with regular food and drink, Picaccio thrived well.
One day, I saw Picaccio coming to the verandah with a tiny creature in his mouth. When I looked closely, I understood that it was a tiny mouse. I shouted at the kitten and it jumped out of the verandah and hid under the car. I stooped and looked under the car. I could see only the tail of the mouse hanging from Picaccio’s mouth. “He is eating the mouse!” my children said. Despite my shouts and yells, the kitten continued munching his dinner. When it finished eating the mouse, Picaccio wiped his face and came out. I felt very angry. What if it brings in a snake next time? I grabbed a stick and frightened the kitten. It ran away. Then my wife asked me: “It is a cat’s duty to catch a mouse. Why do you get angry with it?”
A second thought convinced me that she was right. Each one has his or her own basic instincts. No one can change it. Although it came as a refugee into our house, it is a cat after all. It has its own natural instincts. It will grab a fish whenever it finds one. Whenever it smells beef being cooked in the kitchen, it will stealthy approach. It will try to conquer if it happens to see an enemy.
One of the reasons why we sometimes feel pained, rejected or insulted is that we do not understand the instincts of others. We erroneously expect that we can totally change others by our loving intervention. But, sometimes, we go wrong. Some people react to us beyond our expectations. We need not blame them for this. That is their instinct. A tiger cannot change its stripes nor an Ethiopian his skin.
While we say that everything is subject to change, we also need to understand that there is a limit for change as well. Nobody changes beyond his/her basic instinct.
When Picaccio was a poor kitten, I thought that it would not express its basic nature. I thought that he would change in the loving and secure atmosphere of our home. But, that was not what happened. In favorable conditions, it revealed its basic instincts overtly. Most of us are like this.
Outwardly, we might be living a good life and behaving politely. But, what is our basic instinct? It is there that our real character is tested!
