Online Exhibitions

The Many Lives of the Cat

• Enter the Online Exhibition

“True, no doubt, that my billi cat keeps her belly full

but does she not help keep the kitchen clean?

No, no! no rattling sound, no noise, does she make

while jumping down from the window, my billi cat”

— Excerpt from Meri Billi by Shaheen Iqbal Asar

Translated from Urdu by B.N. Goswamy

Billi in Hindi, Bekku in Kannada, Poonai in Tamil, Birala in Bengali, Manjara in Marathi, or Pilli in Telugu—cats are not just among the most meme’able, memorable or mischievous animals. They have quietly found their way into countless stories, sayings and representations across art history. The online exhibition of The Many Lives of the Cat  is an entry point into Indian art history, with artworks across time periods and materials, drawing from the six categories of the MAP collection.

The late art historian BN Goswamy, in his book The Indian Cat, wrote of the countless stories, mythologies and works of art that cast cats as both heroes and villains. They reappear frequently, both small and big—as triumphant thieves, as dreamers lost in pursuit, as mischievous tricksters, and sometimes, as fiery presences charged with political and social critique.

As the purr-fect extension to the physical show, the online exhibition looks at the figure of the cat through the lens of nine archetypes—The Pop’ular Cat, The Political Cat, The Poetic Cat, Thieves and Other Mischiefs, The Lazy Companion, The Fierce Cat, The Mythical Creature, The Proverbial Cat and The Modernist Cat. Through artworks that embody these roles, we explore the tail of the nine cats, where these felines are central to daily life and Indian art history.

* Some of the texts take from the extended labels that were part of the physical exhibition. They are excerpts taken from the book The Indian Cat: Stories, Paintings, Poetry, and Proverbs written by BN Goswamy, published by Aleph Book Company (2024).

The excerpts from The Indian Cat by B. N. Goswamy are reproduced with permission from Aleph Book Company.

This online exhibition has been made possible with the support of Mphasis F1 Foundation conceptualised as part of MAP’s exhibition The Many Lives of the Cat.