This post was written by Pamela Nowicka
ANYONE WHO HAS RELOCATED KNOWS THE STRESSES AND STRAINS OF THE PROCESS. RELOCATING WITH A PET CAN UNDERSTANDABLY ADD A WHOLE OTHER LAYER OF DRAMA. BUT RELOCATING FROM INDIA TO MALAYSIA WITH FOUR CATS IS PERHAPS ONE OF THE MOST CHALLENGING THINGS WRITER PAMELA NOWICKA HAS EVER DONE.
As a freelance journalist, I’m used to sticky situations. Chasing stories on child trafficking on the Thai-Burmese border. Trekking across India to break the wall of silence around female infanticide, then scooping the story for a BBC documentary which won the Palme d’Or. For R & R, I did ju jitsu with people half my age and twice my size. I firewalked just to make a point.
All this paled into insignificance, however, beside the Herculean task of transporting Pinkie, Pimi, Bob, and Liz from their ancestral home in the south Indian village of Venpurusham to Penang.
Pinkie & Co. would happily have stayed in India, becoming wilder, thinner, and eventually being shot and eaten by local gypsies, but I’d had them since kitten-hood, and, for all intents and purposes, they are (collectively) my significant other, so I made an executive decision that they would accompany me on my new life.
I made enquiries, checked websites. All seemed relatively clear and straightforward on the Malaysian side. Various practical and bureaucratic hurdles to be jumped: rabies shots, microchipping, import certificates, government vet certificates, one week in quarantine… I spoke to friends, acquaintances, anyone who would listen or who’d relocated pets.
Yes, I was assured, it was possible. Good to know, but Pinkie & Co. – accustomed to their lives of rampant bucolic freedom – were in for a bit of a lifestyle change.
When I asked about procedures, I was told to measure and weigh the cats with their carriers. Procedures were not mentioned. I asked again. Emails were ignored. I got recommendations of other agents, who had, apparently, successfully relocated pets from India. Given these credentials, I was bemused by how little concrete information they gave. When they asked how many cats I was relocating, and I said four, the response was always the same. “Why you want take four? Not possible. Only two cats allowed.”
I trawled Government of India websites and Googled variations of “four cats India relocation.” No information. A couple of airline sites stated a two-animal maximum import into India; various animal welfare sites had testimonials from people (in the style of, “I climbed Mount Everest and lived!”) who had done it. A friend of a friend had relocated her three cats from India to France and back. We spent an afternoon in cat-relocation summit talks while her boyfriend chain-smoked, drank beer, and visibly lost the will to live.
By contrast, things with the KL agent, Marcelino, (with whom I was on ever more familiar terms as weeks dragged into months) were pretty straightforward. The cats needed rabies shots and microchips a minimum of three months before the travel date. Once I provided microchip numbers, photos, and ID details, he would go ahead with the import certificate and book quarantine.
Pinkie & Co. were enticed into their carriers, and a yowling, squirming half day of taxi/vet hilarity ensued, at the end of which they were all vaccinated and chipped, and I was seriously rethinking my lifestyle choices.
Naturally, my Indian vet seemed quite clueless. The government vet said they had “no objection to any number of cats,” but to nevertheless “check with customs.” If all else failed, the wife of a friend agreed to come with and take two cats in her name. Appalled by the cost and logistics, I contacted the People for Animals India website. “It’s run by Maneka Gandhi [sister-in-law of assassinated Indian PM, Rajiv Gandhi, and committed animal advocate]; you can ask questions,” recommended a friend.
I did and, to my amazement, was soon pinging with Madam herself. “There is no law on taking out animals or bringing them in,” she said. As a trained lawyer, she should know. Madam personally called the head customs officer at Chennai airport. Result? Four cats? No problem. She wrote a letter to this effect and I printed several copies… just in case. Tickets and quarantine slots were booked. The Malaysian agent was paid a hefty amount.
The day before we left I had to get final documentation from the government vet in Chennai. I entered his office to find that the man who had previously breezily asserted “Four cats, no problem” now greeted me with a frowning, “Four cats? Not possible.” I flicked a copy of Madam’s letter across the desk. Weak smile. “We put two cats on one form.”
The rest is all a blur until I arrived at KLIA and spotted four cat carriers on luggage trolleys waiting outside the quarantine office. Running through the airport like a slo-mo soft-focus movie. Four furry faces. Pinkie. Pimi. Bob. And Liz. Alive.
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Source: The Expat January 2013
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