Cat and God (No, I didn't mean to say, Cat and Dog!)*

As they say, the world is divided into two groups of people: Cat people and Dog people. I, for myself, am a Cat person; but that's beside the point, and has nothing to do with this posting. Nor is this posting in defense of Cats, or is defending the mischief of some naughty cat, but rather, it's an attempt to show the connection of Cat with Religion and God.

The Egyptian civilization, whose major contribution to the Western civilization, in retrospect, seems to be a series of crappy Hollywood movies, worshipped Cats. They were supposed to represent the goddess Bastet. (Male Cats were also supposed to be connected to Ra, the Sun God.). Cats were raised in and around temples dedicated to Bestet, and dead cats were mummified, and buried in huge cemeteries.

In the middle ages, during the inquisition era, when washing your undies on Sabbath could lead to death (Source: "Candide" by Voltaire), the life of the black cats were in supreme peril; they, and their owners, were burned, as they were supposedly the instruments of Devil. Many kids and women lost their life, because they possessed a black cat (In the "civilized" world of the 20th century, a guy named Saloth Sar, or Pol Pot, followed the same procedure to identify the intellectuals; only this time the instrument was a pair of spectacles, but that's another story.). However, the "Modern", 21st century World rectified this unfortunate affair; Scotland issued a blanket amnesty to all Witches on the Halloween's Day . What a wise thought!

Now back to Cats! ... The Holy Land, from where three major religions of the world originated, and where wars have been going on for thousands of years now on religious grounds, has innumerable cats. Almost all cities of the holy land is inhabited by thousands of stray cats.

Not only that: even the great Leonardo De Caprio, I mean, Da Vinci, recently made famous by Dan Brown in his monumental piece of work, "Da Vinci Code" (which, incidently, seems to contain lots of fantastic, imaginary "facts" and a claim to that effect), said, "Even the smallest feline is a masterpiece."

If all these do not convince you of the greatness of cats, then I don't know what can. Maybe the fact that there's a cute kitten in Houston, who loves to drink Champagne, and eat white chocolate, would! But then, he's the Don of the Cats, and he owns my good friend Jen.

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Dedicated to: Don Cervantes de Vito Escobar y Macondo, the Don of the Cats.