Checking up further, Gordon found that Sir Robert Grant, the then Governor of Bombay, had died of apoplexy at Dapuri on July 9, 1838. "On the evening of his death, a cat was seen to leave the house by the front door and walk up and down a path in the garden, after sunset, just as the late Governor did during his life. One of the Hindu sentries, who had been accustomed to the Governor’s walks in the area, was struck by the coincidence of the incident. Surprised, he discussed the matter with his friends. Familiar as the Hindus are with the concept of a life after death and transmigration of the souls, the sentries decided that the cat must be a re-incarnation of the late Lat sahib (Governor), who liked the mansion so well as to revisit it and take his daily walks, as when he was alive! Now, whether in human form or in cat form, proper respect must be shown to the late Governor, they decided.

But the Government House harboured several cats and no one was sure which of them it was that had walked out of the front door on the fatal day with the "soul" of the late Governor. So, (Gordon tells us), "to be on the safe side, it was therefore decided that every cat passing out of the main entrance after dark was to be regarded as "housing" the Governor’s soul and to be treated with due respect and proper honours. This decision, once taken, was accepted without question by all the native attendants and others belonging to the Dapuri Government House and all sentries complied with the unwritten order, whatever their religion.

At the time (it was 1863) when Gordon found out about the strange reverence given to the cats, the guard was a weekly one, furnished alternately by each of the two Bombay Infantry battalions of the garrison. The commanding officers of the two corps were, in Gordon’s words, "Of diametrically different dispositions". One was of sympathetic temperament and calm judgement, used to the ways of Indian subordinates, and the other was very impetuous and "arbitrary, a rigid disciplinarian and a severe commander".

Gordon himself checked confidentially as to the truth of the cat story and later discussed it with both the commanders, as being remarkable for the long continuance of the verbal order without its having become known to outsiders. The effect on the two commanders was surprising. The sympathetic officer told Gordon that he would laugh the Indian officers out of the idea; the other said that he would order them to discontinue the folly.

True to his words, he assembled his subedars and jemadars (Indian officers) and ordered them to refuse to take over, or to countenance, in any way, ‘the cat order’, and threatened them with a court-martial if they did so. But, as soon as the guard of his regiment next returned from his week’s duty at Government House, he found out, after questioning the subedar in command, that the Indian feared his Colonel less than he had feared the supernatural and had carried on the saluting of the cat. He told his superior that he was quite prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice his commission and pension, if that was to be the punishment.

The Colonel thereupon placed the subedar under arrest, for "an act prejudicial to good order and military discipline’ contrary to the Indian articles of war, and applied for trial by court-martial. But the Britisher was apologetic and told Gordon, "I know that you will laugh at me. But I am a stickler for discipline and my authority must be vindicated!".

But, fortunately for the Indian officer, the Brigadier in charge of the Poona station took a more balanced view, ordered the Subedar’s release, and counselled the Colonel to deal "more patiently and gently with simple superstitions". The cats in the Dapuri mansion continued to receive honours due to a Governor, until the new Government House at Ganeshkind was taken into use in 1865. It is a pity, that soon afterwards the old mansion at Dapuri had to be demolished. It would have been interesting to know, if the "Governor as a cat" continued overawe the sentries/watchmen in the decades that followed. MF