It's cats and dogs everywhere at India's only Cat Cafe

If you think Shifu is a very agile Kung Fu master, wait till you visit India's only cat cafe. Lolling in India's first and only cat cafe is a 55 kg labrador whose mastery seems limited to eating and sleeping. You read that right. The Cat Cafe Studio, a film production house (Zcyphher Studios) that doubles up as an animal shelter, an adoption centre and a cosy cafe in Versova's Aaraam Nagar neighbourhood is now home to dogs as well. While Shifu isn't really an adoptee, but just the neighbour's labrador who has adopted Cat Cafe Studio as his own, four mongrels now keep company to the 36 rescued cats being nursed into health before being put up for adoption.

Mridu Khosla who moved from New York to Mumbai after film school in 2006 and set up Zcyphher Studios in 2008 remembers being appalled to see the condition of stray animals in Mumbai. "It broke my heart to see people ignoring this. I rescued my first cat in 2006. She was very sick and lived a only for six months. Later, I found another one and another one and then another one."

Once she had six cats at home, there was no room for more members. Khosla had to change five apartments over the last 11 years because of neighbours and housing societies who did not like her keeping cats. "I realised I needed more space when I rescued more cats and brought them over."

Luckily for her, Zcyphher had on its team Charu (her sister and dentist by training and her partner at the production house) and video editor Jason Moss who share her passion for animals by 2012. The team began getting more and more aggressive with rescues. "We began working with vets and experts to find out a more holistic way of dealing with strays. We undertook a lot of neutering/spaying drives to keep the in-house population of strays within limit as the rescues went on.

Since the office space fell short, they moved to bigger studio where half the space was for cats and the other half for work. Since they also wanted to find homes for the cats, the Cate Cafe Studio came into being. "We put this up on Facebook and asked people to come spend time with the cats and offered to ply them tea/coffee. If they liked the cats, they could adopt," Jason said.

Now its a full fledged cafe with a calendar choc-a-bloc with events. Stand up comedies, book readings and more. "It has found a life of its own, and the cats and also the dogs seem to love the attention," says a proud Khosla. Incidentally all those who want to pet or handle the animals have to mandatorily clean hands with sanitiser first.

"We never set out to start a cafe," insists Jason, " We wanted people who want to adopt to feel comfortable and get concerns about diet, lifestyle, health, etc addressed before taking the cat home." He adds, "The cafe has helps raise funds for more rescues/care. However, we are not an NGO, and it can get difficult to sustain."

"We're essentially about rescue, nursing to good health and adoption. The visitors themselves gave us this idea by offering to pay for tea and coffee as to provide for at least a wet meal for a cat," says Charu. She adds, "The cats are given the best in nutrition, healthcare, and love, and Cat cafe is the hardest place to get a cat from. We screen well before the adoption. We learned it the hard way."

The Cat Cafe celebrates the regular Indian cat. "The Indian common cat is the most active, the most loveable cat, and is also accustomed to this climate and weather. We want people to see how cool they are. The cafe, the decor is all part of the ambience to showcase that," says Khosla.

While they have been able to build a sizable community of supporters, the biggest challenge still remains the hostility. "People blame us for taking in strays. They don't realise our intervention is actually trying to solve the problem in our own small way," says Khosla who admits her team, over the years, has begun to deal with it like yet another occupational hazard.

Charu noted that even if people do not adopt from their studio, they still go out better educated about cats. "For example most Indians want to feed cats milk. Cats, unlike dogs, are lactose intolerant. Most rescued cats get diarrhea because of milk. It takes a week or two to just fix their tummies."

Aall employees at Zcyphher have to be animal lovers and part of the day has to be spent volunteering in caring for the animals "The staff enjoys the breaks to go play with the cats, feed them or take them to the vet."

The Cat Cafe took its time agreeing to talk. "Any coverage will lead to yet another round of eager beaver rescuers who will simply want to dump cats on us. They get rude and offensive when told we can't take them," complains Mridu.

Moss wonders why the 'helper's high' is limited to pushing responsibility elsewhere. "A rescue isn't about handing a cat to an organisation and posting a selfie on Facebook. It's about going through the process of healing a cat, and then finding it a loving home. That is rescue."

The cat curled up in his lap seems to like that. She's smiling even in her sleep.