I suppose it is a bit curious that I have never really read much of New Zealand literature. Especially since it is my fifth year in the country and I consider myself to be an aspiring writer - (well, the aspiration is all there but the writing is yet to land). I was barely aware of this abnormality of mine until one fine day (partly cloudy actually, like most Auckland days) The Daily Star literary editor suggested I write a piece on New Zealand literature.

I admit to knowing a few names of New Zealand poets and writers. But names are just empty sounds unless paired with a person or a personality. These names that float in the Kiwi air with which I am familiar are not associated with any particular image or a feeling. I mean, let's take the name Shibram Chakrobarty for example; it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, bursting with life and laughter, Jibanananda Das resonates a feeling of dusk, melancholy and nostalgia and Kazi Nazrul Islam brings about passion. The first New Zealand book I purchased is a collection of short stories, poetry and memoirs on cats. It is titled 'The Cat's Whiskers [New Zealand Writers on Cats]', and edited by Peter Wells. I later found out that Wells is a prominent New Zealand writer with a number of awards under his belt.

In the introduction Wells writes "The cat has long had a privileged relationship with writers. Perhaps it is the cat's solitary nature or its ability to radiate a kind of silence and peacefulness that makes it a particular favourite of writers." I immediately thought of those rare winter afternoons when I sit baffled in front of my laptop attempting at a masterpiece or two and my cat sprawled across my feet like a warm cushion, snoozing. Obviously Peter Wells's observation pleased me immensely as it so logically authenticated my claims to being an author. Thus satisfied that it is a wonderful book I commenced reading.

And surprise! Contrary to my initial impression that this is going to be a cute and cuddly collection on cats, Wells says that, "My aim with this book has been to mine a rich seam in New Zealand writing that has seen the cat as friend, companion, muse." Wells has collected samples of writing by a wide range of New Zealand authors and poets of varied genres and time. It is amazing how without even knowing it, like a thirsty horse led to the water by divine powers, here I stand.

I adored Margaret Mahy's story about the cat that ate a poet-mouse and became a poet himself against his will. The little verses the cat catches himself pondering over during various catly activities are hilarious. For example, as the cat lies in his bed and wonders what has come over him, he says:

Lying in the catnip bed,

The flowering cherry over my head, Am I really the cat that I seem?

Or only a cat in another cat's dream?

Or the time when he wants to hiss at the neighbour's dog but a poem comes out instead:

Colonel Dog fires his cannon And puts his white soldiers on parade.

He guards the house from cats, burglars,

And any threat of peacefulness.

Well, that will definitely teach anyone attempting to eat a poet!

A poem I found charmingly witty, a nightmare to any cat lover, is Bernard Brown's 'Sufficient Pussy':

All cats can go to hell And save me worry. The only one I ever loved Was one in Auckland In a curry.

C.K Stead's poem Cat/ullus touched me. The first line, "Zac's Dead" is absolute, like death itself, no space for ambiguity. Someone once said “Dead is a good word for dead, because it's so dead.”

Zac of the goldfish eyes and nice-smelling fur who when I had a problem with a poem slept on it, who lived to put his paw-print on a valued citation, who in his dying days jumped to swipe at a passing moth and missed.

I thought of my sweet tabby tortoiseshell cat and her many mischiefs - the surprised look on her face as she gingerly touches the hedgehog's back after a garden wide chase and gets pricked on the paws, the way she runs shaking her ears trying to get rid of a buzzing bee, her comforting presence as I cook, read, sleep, our one-way conversations, how she settles in my lap and soothes me when I am sad.

Excerpts of Kathryn Mansfield's letters to Virginia Woolf took my interest to a new dimension all

together. She writes 'On April 5th our one daffodil came into flower and our cat, Charlie Chaplin, had a kitten.' Not only have I given a boy's name to a girl cat just as Kathryn Mansfield did, I also chose the famous Mr Bill Clinton for her name! Great minds, wouldn't you say? Just like her cat, my Mr Clinton sits and read with me too!

But jokes aside, a lot of the stories, poems and memoirs in the book use the cat's presence as a representative of complex human emotions and relationship with each other and the surroundings. Peter Wells writes about momentary appearance of the cat in some stories: "It is the nature of a cat to coil into a room, then slither out like a shadow, leaving behind a changed atmosphere."

As dusk arrives on my deck after a hot and humid day and I sit, leaning against the wall with the book in hand, a family of ducks under the plum tree in the garden flap their wings and sit back dreamily. Crickets buzz. Long white clouds hang from the sky conforming to the Maori name for New Zealand Aotearoa (Land of long white clouds).

My dear Mr Clinton treads home. She jumps up on the deck and sits next to me kneading my knee with her paws. She smells like flowers, dust and sunlight. I stroke her face and carefully untangle the bit of cobweb she carried home with her. What adventures did you have today I ask, which little corner of the world did you discover.

I concentrate on the book. Peter Bland writes "There's a touch of Zen in these feline appearances. A sense that they know more than they're letting on, that they somehow slink effortlessly between parallel universes; so that their mythical nine lives are more a matter of inhabiting different realities than simply staying alive." I deeply inhale and the faint fragrance of the wild roses in my backyard fills my senses.

Perhaps I am a cat in a human body. Why else do the days gone by seem so far away, dreamlike and yet so real, almost touchable, as if I am living them still in some parallel world. As I smile down at my cat, she smiles surreptitiously. A few sparrows fly away from a branch of the gleditsia tree. The puhutukawa branches sway. I say possibilities, dear Mr Clinton, possibilities.

Luna Rushdi is a Bangladesh writer in Auckland, New Zealand. Her email address is lunarushdi@gmail.com