Moving cities with a cat

We recently moved to Bangalore from Mumbai with our two-year-old cat A. It has been fun and we have a few people to thank for that.

The Indian Railways allows passengers to take pets in the First Class compartment. Which is a good thing because pets need their space and become awfully crabby in confined spaces like cages. The sudden exposure to new sounds and sights is too traumatic for them.

Transporting pets by air is possible. We know someone who successfully moved her three cats from Mumbai to Dubai, of course it cost her a bomb. There have also been cases of pets dying in the cargo. Only Air India allows pets inside the cabin but the final word still rests with the pilot. We lost a cat last year and weren’t prepared to take the risk. Trains seemed like the only other option. A friend sweetly offered to drive us down in his car but that would have been traumatising for him as well.

We booked two First Class AC ticket on the Udyan Express online on the IRCTC website and selected ‘Coupe’ in the drop-down menu to select seat preference. We read somewhere that it helps if you write a letter to the Railways telling them why you need a coupe. So we wrote a letter, took a print, attached a copy of our ticket and showed it to the Chief Reservation Manager at CST, Mumbai. She read it patiently and asked me to drop a copy of it at the Chief Commercial Manager’s office one day before the date of journey. (The Commercial Manager sits in the building at the Masjid end of Platform no. 1 along with the Materials and Accounts offices). There was a slot in his door into which requests are supposed to be dropped, post box style.

Something the Chief Reservation Manager said still haunted us though. ‘If there is no VVIP travelling at that time, you’ll get your coupe.’ A certain blog also mentioned that the TC can ‘arrange’ a coupe for you even after the charts were made if you only ‘gift’ him. Thanks to this, we were only partially relieved when an SMS appraised us of a coupe reservation.

A mewed her head off in the cab to the station. Once there, the noise of the trains and announcements pushed her to the very back of her carriage. She didn’t mew much but we could see her heart beat furiously. Her goggled eyes looked around in all directions. We couldn’t wait to get her into the quiet of the train.

Once inside, she stayed under the seat for about 6 hours. Only. After that, she wanted to be everywhere. We had read that pets don’t eat or poop when travelling. But we’d carried some treats which A readily had once she was comfortable with the space. Also drank water and use the litter once or twice. So relieved! 

Many thanks to Kaustubh Srikanth and Malika Bhavnani for taking time to write detailed mails about travelling with pets. Thanks to the awesome Clyde Nunes for offering to drive us down if we didn't get the coupe. Avantika Kapur, A loves the carriage, thank you! Varun Joshua, if you didn't let us bring A to your place, didn't know what we would've done! And of course, thanks to the Indian Railways for making A's first big journey comfortable!

Enjoy the pictures!