The Dalai Lama's Cat and the Art of Purring Read Online Free PDF Page B

your circumstances you just want to be happy. Not the kind of happy that comes and goes like a can of flaked tuna, but an enduring happiness. The deep-down happiness that makes you purr from the heart.
    Only a few days after the Indian banquet, I made another intriguing discovery about happiness. Midway through a glorious Himalaya morning—blue skies, fluting birdsong, the invigorating scent of pine—I heard unfamiliar sounds coming from the bedroom. Hopping off my sill, I went to investigate.
    Chogyal was supervising a spring cleaning in the Dalai Lama’s absence. My second-favorite monk was standing in the center of the room overseeing one workman who was up a ladder, unhooking the curtains, while another was perched on a stool giving the light fixture a good wipe.
    My relationship with Chogyal went through a subtle change every time His Holiness traveled. In the mornings, when he arrived at work, he would come through to the Dalai Lama’s quarters just to see me, spending a few minutes brushing my coat with my special comb and talking to me about that day’s events, a reassurance I appreciated after spending the night alone.
    Similarly, before he left work at night, he would ensure that my biscuit bowl was filled and my water replenished, then take time to stroke me and remind me how much I was loved, not only by His Holiness but by everyone in the household. I knew that Chogyal was trying to make up for the Dalai Lama’s absence, and his kind heart endeared him to me all the more.
    But this morning I was alarmed by what he was doing to our bedroom. One of his underlings was gathering items for washing when Chogyal gestured to my beige fleece blanket, on the floor under a chair. “That one,” he said. “It hasn’t been washed for months.”
    No, it hadn’t—deliberately! Nor would it be, if His Holiness had anything to do with it.
    I meowed plaintively.
    Chogyal turned to see me sitting in the door with a pleading expression in my eyes. However, for all his warmth of heart, Chogyal was not very perceptive when it came to cats. Unlike the Dalai Lama, who would have known exactly why I was unhappy, he mistook my meow as one of general distress.
    Reaching down, he drew me into his arms and began to stroke me.
    “Don’t worry, HHC,” he said reassuringly, using my official designation, short for His Holiness’s Cat, at the exact moment that the cleaner seized the blanket and made off with it in the direction of the laundry. “Everything will be back, perfectly clean, before you know it.”
    Didn’t he realize that was exactly the problem? I struggled from his arms, even extending my claws to show I meant business. After a few moments of unpleasantness, he put me down.
    “Cats,” he said, shaking his head with a bemused smile, as though I had spurned his affections for no good reason.
    Returning to the windowsill, my tail hanging dejectedly, I noticed how unpleasantly bright the day had become. Outside, the birds squawked loudly, and the stink of pine was as strong as bathroom disinfectant. How could Chogyal not see what he was doing? How could he not realize that he had just ordered the obliteration of the last surviving link I had to the very cutest kitten that ever lived, my darling little Snow Cub?

    Four months earlier, as a result of a dalliance with a ruggedly handsome if ultimately unsuitable back-alley Tom, I had given birth to a gorgeous litter of four. The first three to emerge into the world were just like their father: dark, robust, and male. It was, in fact, a source of general amazement that such vigorous specimens of tabby, soon sporting mackerel stripes, could have emerged from my petite and refined, if delightfully fluffy body. The fourth and final kitten was, however, in every way her mother’s child. The last to make her way onto the yak blanket on His Holiness’s bed in the early hours one morning, she was born so small she could easily have fit into a tablespoon. Initially we all