CATS CALLING

An Indian-origin doctor stays back in Ukraine to take care of his jagulep and black panther

- RAHUL DEVULAPALLI

In 2020, Dr Girikumar Patil sold his Mercedes to buy a ‘Jaguar’ variant. Nothing odd, except that he was not changing brands—he was buying a big American cat. The forty-year-old orthopaedic, who is originally from Andhra Pradesh and is now a Ukrainian, paid almost $35,000 (₹26.23 lakh then) for the cat.

The deal got him the 100kg cat, and a nickname—Jaguar Kumar. Patil says that his cat, Yasha, is a jagulep, born of a leopard and a female jaguar. Jaguleps are rare; Yasha is apparently the only one in Ukraine.

A few months ago, Patil emptied his garage once again; this time he sold a BMW to buy a black panther. He shelled out $20,000 (₹15.31 lakh) for Sabrina. Patil and his cats have a dedicated fan following online, thanks to his YouTube channel that has nearly 85,000 subscribers.

Patil lives in a town called Harina in the Luhansk region that borders Russia. Luhansk and Donetsk are part of the separatist-controlled Donbas region. On February 21, Russia recognised the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic as independent states.

When sirens go off every evening, most of Harina’s 18,000 residents move to safer places. But Patil crawls into his one-room bunker along with 20-month-old Yasha, six-month-old Sabrina and three Italian mastiffs. “You will not find a single soul in the town in the evenings,” he says. “There is a factory 400m from my house, the railway station is 500m away and the police station 400m. My house is a sitting duck as this area can be targeted by Russians.”