Wednesday, June 14, 2017

wag the dog

it was a lazy afternoon. we were in this spacious house/apartment, and everyone was taking a nap or lazing around in bed. Clive and I were in the lower half of a king size double bed, the sort made of ancient, heavy wood.

we were watching a movie on his laptop. the movie was titled "wag the dog". the movie was about a struggling musician who inspired another guy to learn to play the guitar. the inspired guy became a famous musician, and one fine day, the guy who inspired him (let's call him *x*) turned up anonymously to watch one of his performances. after the performance, he went up to the now famous musician (let's call him *y*) and reintroduced himself. *y* remembered him and thanked him for the inspiration. *x* was very curious about his unique playing style and asked him to play a solo piece for him. as soon as *y* started playing the role *x* realized that he was only pretending to play the guitar, but was actually using a touch sensitive sensor on the back panel of his iPhone. this agitated *x* and he considered it an affront to his musical legacy. there was a tiff, which ended with *x* smashing the guitar on *y*'s head, to assess from the sound whether it was a real guitar or not. the guitar was real, and the movie ended.

Clive shut his laptop, and I got out of bed and walked to the other room. sunil and a lady were in one bed, shruti was in another, and suraj was in the third bed. they were discussing something when I walked in, and I told them I just watched "wag the dog". they asked me if I liked it, and I told them it was brilliant. they all chimed in with their own appreciation of the movie as well.

shruti suggested we go for a ride. we stepped out and got on the bike. we were riding to CST railway station, which was a straight ride down a highway, which looked more like marine drive than any other highway. only differences were that there was some sort of construction work (metro work?) underway along the median of the highway, and the opposite (i. e northbound) side had a broad, landscaped garden between the road and the sea face.

somewhere on the way, a cyclist darted across the highway from behind a rickshaw, and nearly missed colliding with us. I chided the cyclist, and we resumed our ride. we reached CST railway station.

the road ended at a grassy quadrangle which was bordered by a single lane tar road on all 4 sides. on the right of this road was the railway station and tracks, while on the left, there was the ticket booking counter. straight ahead, was a stone building which had the entrance to the station. I parked the bike, and we stood in line for a platform ticket. there was a guy in front of us in the line, who had a huge backpack on his back. he walked away from the counter, and I was about to buy our platform ticket, when the person at the counter started calling out to him as he had forgotten to collect his ticket. I called out to him as well, and he turned around just then. the person at the counter said that in addition to the platform ticket, he also had a special permit to carry a fossil across the bridge. he handed me the ticket and permit to give to the guy. the permit was a piece of paper, with a t-rex hand drawn in blue ballpoint pen.

I handed him the ticket and permit, and got back to the counter to get my own ticket, only to find that someone else had gotten ahead of me. the person ahead happened to be another friend, Elizabeth, and she was buying a monthly pass for the platform. she nodded at me without saying anything while the person at the counter prepared her pass.

for some reason, I changed my mind about the ticket, and decided to return home. but strangely, I was looking for my folding cycle instead of my motorbike. and I couldn't remember where I had parked it. I thought I had chained it to a tree, but there was no tree in sight.

and that's when I woke up.

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