Well before reading the fantasy novel series His dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, I watched the movie based on the eponymous first book, The Golden Compass, and was immediately fascinated by the idea of a parallel world in which human souls existed as sentient animal companions called daemons. In particular, I was taken with the shape-shifting daemon Pantalaimon or “Pan” of Lyra Belacqua, the young protagonist in the series. I hasten to add that this essay is not a critique of the books or the movie. In the books, as is common for the daemons of all children, Pantalaimon can take any animal form he chooses, and indeed he changes into many forms throughout the series and finally into a pine marten (a cat-sized carnivore in the weasel family) as Lyra enters adulthood.
What stayed with me from the movie The Golden Compass is Pantalaimon’s wildcat form, which manifests when young Lyra is feeling bold or needs protection from danger. I feel like I have my own daemon, shape fixed (since I am of advanced age) into our precious Widget Greything—whom I have previously talked about in this space and whom, since last November, I have christened my Bangalaimon.
To be honest, I have never seen Widget in any other shape. Twelve years ago, when barely a month-old he came to be with us, he was a small kitty, happy kitty, little ball of fur—much like the children’s lullaby I first heard in the American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory—who used to sleep bundled on my chest and occasionally suckle on my chin stubble while making dough on my throat. In 2026 Common Era, he is our senior cat with his own personality, his adorable quirks, and his relentless desire to enjoy human food which accompanies his sad inability to eat anything other than his prescription diet without getting all itchy and sprouting an ouchie-paw (the absolutely scientific term for inflammation used for our Widget by our dearest veterinarian). The last bit is also what led to a belly shorn of fur due to constant and prodigious licking before he was put on anti-inflammatory medication for life.
I was out of commission and hospitalized since the middle of September 2025 with a serious medical issue which could have gone either way, but did not (thankfully) under the watchful eyes of my wife, my excellent team of physicians and nurses at the hospital, and the photos of our Widget Greything, our dearly departed Haalubaba, and our community cat Mister watching over me from a whiteboard directly across my hospital bed.
What made Widget my Bangalaimon is simply this: on the fateful day in November when I was finally discharged from the hospital and brought home by my wife and my brother-in-law, the moment I entered through the back door and the kitchen, the moment Widget saw me, he came and sat on my feet and rubbed his nose against my leg. When I plonked myself on the sofa, he took his rightful place on my lap just like before.
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| author and cat, person and his daemon |
Since then, in the initial several months, I had several weird discomforts while sleeping at night as my body was settling down, and it was impossible for me to have Widget sleep curled up on my legs as he used to do before. One of the main reasons for that was that I had to get up nearly once every hour to go to the bathroom. My body’s temperature regulation also seemed to have gone a bit awry, and I felt too warm or too cold at night. Widget compromised by laying himself carefully down between me and my wife on the bed, like a warm, hairy baby with whiskers and a tail that moves much like a windshield wiper.
What took me a while to realize is that throughout this difficult time, Widget kept a watchful eye over me. Every time I woke up to get to the bathroom, he jumped down from the bed and sat down in front of the bathroom door with his eyes towards me. When after finishing I came back to bed, he would soundlessly come back to the bed and resume his position. For months on end, he did this every hour, every single time I got up; he did this when initially, as instructed by the hospital, I had to wake up my wife to help me out of the bed and hold me steady while I walked on my unsteady legs to get to the bathroom; he did this when eventually, after months of physical and occupational therapy, I was able to walk to the bathroom and do my business without additional help. He just watched over me all the time all this while. He still does that now that I have gotten more comfortable in my skin and have been managing with getting up only once or twice to visit the loo or even sleeping through the night. Of course, he is back into his favorite position of sleeping at night, on the covers but using my legs like a hammock, and I am no longer uncomfortable while sleeping. But he is still following me around the house like my shadow, my one-and-only Bangalaimon.
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