The Ganesha Chronicles: How a Cat and an Animal Rights Lawyer Rewrote My Understanding of Friendship
A meditation on perspective, prejudice, and discovering companionship across species - featuring insights from my latest conversation with animal rights advocate Dulki Seethawaka
The Curious Nobody
May 31, 2025
Meet Ganesha. Or Ozzie, depending on your cultural preference—sometimes we just call him Oz. Born to Indian and American parents (that would be my wife and me), he carries both names with the dignity of someone who understands he's bridging worlds—which, as it turns out, he absolutely is.
I need to confess something: before Ganesha entered my life, I was categorically, definitively, stubbornly wrong about cats. Not just a little off—spectacularly, embarrassingly wrong. The kind of wrong that makes you question what other fundamental assumptions you're carrying around like intellectual baggage.
Growing up in Bangalore, my entire relationship with cats consisted of midnight raids on our kitchen. Stray cats would knock over pots and pans, drink our milk, and engage in what sounded like supernatural warfare outside my bedroom window. The noises they made during their fights didn't just wake me up—they genuinely freaked me out. So naturally, I concluded: cats are selfish, disruptive, and generally problematic. Case closed. I was a dog person, obviously. End of discussion.
It's fascinating how a single "seat in the theater house" can shape your entire worldview about something. I've come to think of this as one of life's most underappreciated truths—that where you happen to be positioned when you first encounter something can determine your relationship with it for decades. It sounds almost trivial when you say it out loud, but the implications are profound. Those Bangalore strays gave me one perspective on what cats are—the view from row Z, where all I could see was chaos and disruption. I carried that assumption for decades without questioning it, never wondering what cats might look like from the front row, or from backstage, or from an entirely different theater altogether. Then Ganesha arrived, and my carefully constructed anti-cat worldview began to crumble.
Here's what I discovered: having a close bond with a member of another animal species is actually profound when you think about it. We're talking about genuine friendship across the species barrier—two entirely different types of consciousness finding ways to communicate, care for each other, and share space harmoniously. But Ganesha didn't just teach me about cats. He taught me about friendship itself.
The moment I knew I'd crossed some invisible threshold was when Ganesha developed digestive issues. Without hesitation, I drove to Urbana-Champaign because it was the last veterinary clinic that could help with his constipation problem. Sitting in that car, driving hours to help a cat feel better, I realized something had fundamentally shifted. This was something I would do for people I deeply care about. Except Ganesha isn't people—he's just... my friend. And that's when it hit me: friendship doesn't need to be catalogued, taxonomized, or explained. It can exist purely for its own sake.
Here's the thing about Ganesha: he's a magnificent manipulator. He can play me like a fiddle, and he knows it. He'll pose on demand—literally pose—because he understands the effect it has on us. He gets the joke, we get the joke, and somehow that shared understanding makes it even funnier. When he gets the zoomies and starts racing around the house for no apparent reason, or when he strategically positions himself on my lap during those moments of herbal meditation when I need some therapeutic companionship, he's not just being cute. He's being intentionally charming, and we're all complicit in this beautiful routine. It's like having a friend who knows exactly how to make you smile and isn't shy about deploying that knowledge.
Watching Ganesha move through the world, I finally understand why Catwoman works as a character. Whether it was the black actress or white actress who played her in the 1960s Batman series, they all captured something essentially feline: that calculated grace, the way cats plan their trajectories, their quiet confidence. If a cat got a human avatar, it would indeed be slender, beautiful not just in physique but in mannerisms—calculated but affectionate, scheming but charming. Ganesha embodies all of this while somehow being completely transparent about it.
We love to categorize our relationships: work friends, old friends, close friends, family friends. But Ganesha exists outside these categories entirely. He's just... a friend. No agenda, no complexity, no strings attached. Two beings who enjoy each other's company. That's it. And somehow, that's everything. There's something beautifully pure about this kind of relationship. No career networking, no social obligations, no need to maintain appearances or navigate human drama. Just companionship for its own sake.
This experience with Ganesha has made me wonder: why don't we have more relationships like this? Not necessarily with pets, but with people—friendships that exist purely for the joy of mutual appreciation, without any other agenda? Maybe we do, and I just hadn't noticed because I was too busy categorizing everything. Or maybe we've forgotten how to appreciate simple companionship in our complex, networked world.
But Ganesha was just the beginning of a much larger awakening. Through my podcast, The Idea Sandbox, I've had conversations with remarkable people who've completely shifted my perspective on our relationship with animals. Dulki Seethawaka, an animal rights lawyer whose conversation just went live on YouTube, along with animal rights activist Varnika Singh and Julie Palais (whose episode is still in production), have fundamentally changed how I see our fellow inhabitants on this planet. These conversations didn't just inform me—they transformed me.
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Suddenly, I realized I'd been leaving so much on the table. Life became richer when I understood that my palette of potential friendships could include beings with four legs, snouts, and dispositions that bring me genuine joy. What a bridge experience I've been bestowed with—maybe thanks to the podcast, maybe thanks to the animal gods, maybe thanks to the universe. I really appreciate all of these experiences. It's been so liberating to discover that companionship comes in forms I'd never seriously considered.
Either way, Ganesha has taught me something valuable about perspective. Those Bangalore strays weren't representative of all cats—they were just cats trying to survive in difficult circumstances. My negative view was based on a single, limited experience. How many other assumptions am I carrying around based on equally limited exposure? How many potential friendships, experiences, or opportunities have I written off because I happened to be sitting in the wrong seat in the theater house when I first encountered them?
Ganesha didn't just change my mind about cats. He changed my approach to being wrong—and to the possibility that being wrong might be the beginning of something wonderful rather than the end of something.
This morning, watching a woodchuck wander through our yard, I felt my heart melt. Why can't I be friends with the woodchuck too? What about the deer that casually stroll past? They're co-inhabitants of this space, fellow conscious beings navigating existence just like us. We don't see them as equals just because we have language and opposable thumbs. But consciousness comes in many forms, and companionship doesn't require conversation.
Ganesha poses, I laugh, we both get the joke. It's a never-ending routine that somehow never gets old. Maybe that's what friendship actually is: finding someone whose presence makes existence more enjoyable, and then just... enjoying it. No explanation required. No category needed. Just two beings adoring each other for exactly as long as it feels good to do so.
And that, it turns out, can go on for a very long time.
What assumptions about friendship, companionship, or perspective have been challenged in your own life? Sometimes the most profound teachers come in the most unexpected forms.
Love and Peace (and Strategic Cat Poses),
The Curious Nobody
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