Being polecat

What draws you to be a polecat?" I typed. "What draws you to be a human?" he typed.

I was stumped. I had no answer. I had found this polecat - actually a 22-year-old German in a full-body polecat costume - loitering on Omegle, a video chatting site where I also found a porcupine, a fox, a half-kangaroo - in fact, an entire subculture. This polecat, a part of that subculture, had elegant, dark brown fur, which got darker around LED-lit yellow eyes, that looked childishly into mine. Something had happened to this German after a youthful encounter with art - "Eight years ago, I kinda dropped into it through furry art" - and he decided his fellow human beings were not nearly so interesting as those animal characters in the furry art. "Illustrations of werewolves, mythical creators, Gods also inspired me," he wrote, tilting his furry head adorably. The second revelation came when he got on the internet: not only were there other "furries" like him - people with fascination for animal characters - they were weird, too.

Since then, he took online refuge in his polecat character called Shawn Lohawk. "I love my fursona (fur plus persona)," writes the German, not letting out his real name. "From characteristics to design, I just fell in love with it. I like to make sarcastic jokes in a friendly way. Similarly, Shawn isn't the cute fluffy thing kids would want to play with, but he's still a good buddy and loyal friend." Saying this, he put on his polecat head and, with his left paw, beckoned me closer over camera: I stopped chuckling as he flashed his claws, tapping them one by one over his leathery nose: "Wow, my claws are really bright ," he wrote, his horny nails glowing in the dark from screen light. He seemed to put his claws on my head, giving me my first virtual scratch. I was tempted to turn around, scream, and run, but lost my anxiety when he said: "Just think you have been petted by a cat!" "Thank you, sir."

"I wanted to show this costume to the world. I get happy when I see polecats. I feel connected to them, just like when you see your good friend across the street," he says, before baring his fangs. "The human form - the body, the flesh, the design - holds no appeal to me. First of all, we're not as cute as animals," he says. "And human intelligence is not that wonderful: it is overrated." He thinks technology will be available soon to help him become part-man, part-beast, till then he will keep playing Omegle, he will keep scratching virtual backs, like monkeys at a zoo. "Skritching, not scratching," he corrects me.

Skritching indeed: A high number of furries who skritch on Omegle are not even costumed, they are just bearded men wearing glasses, resembling animals in their own way. While some have innocent eyes, others are crazy-eyed. But some do have a little something (furry hand puppet, rabbit ears) to set them apart from ordinary Omegle surfers - one got up from his couch, for example, and turned around to reveal a fluffy tail hanging out from his behind. I also got bombarded by tigers, kangaroos, rats, but the percentage of women seemed low, a sign of an exclusive subculture perhaps. By now, our polecat friend wanted to free himself from costume. "Ha ha, it's pretty hot in this thing," he wrote, excusing himself for a minute. I took the time to go to his Facebook page, where drawings of furry fantasies lay in glorious detail. "Sorry, I really had to get this polecat head off," the German said when he returned, waving me goodbye with a paw.

ashish.sharma@bsmail.in