Now then, just had an awesome dream!
I am in high school, stuck in some bizarre he-said she-said situation between my teacher, a girl, my mother and me. My mom and my teacher are having an argument, over me making videos on school property. Their disagreement is over some point about rules and policy, and has little to do with me. I apologise separately both to my mom and my teacher, and to the girl as well. Teacher just tells me, I did not know you were shooting videos! You should continue to do it, then argues with my mom again about shooting videos on school property without informing other students or taking permission.
I bunk class being disillusioned with everything, and go to the ground, where I have a smuggled quarter of white rum mixed in seven up. (This reminds me in BMM where we used to do this regularly. Once during a trip to Silvasa, teacher thought I had a mixed disguised drink and asked to taste it. I gave it to him, he found nothing mixed, and chugged quite a bit. He later caught me drinking cough syrup, then told me "you are drinking it or is it drinking you?"). Anyway, so I am in this field, and people are playing, and I seek out my friend, who suggests I go drinking. I tell him but all the bars are closed because of the pandemic, and he gives me directions to one that is open.
I bunk the remaining classes, worried about failing the course and affecting my perfect score, and having to go through the final three years of high school without my friends, and with the irritating juniors. I'm contemplating all this while following my friend's directions and heading to the bar.
I already had a quarter and I am dreading having more and making all these calculations about how many I should order and in what quantities, while I navigate around an empty shopping centre, its the Amrapali arcade, till I come across a tiny wine shop/bar sandwiched between a medical shop and general store.
It is the kind of bar found in Karnataka. There is a big line outside, and the crowd is tightly packed. I navigate through the people and find that there are tables inside. Go in, and we were all tightly packed in together, with all the seats filled up, shoulder to shoulder. It's like US soldiers in a helicopter, and we are going in a war against alcohol.
One guy comes in and makes the seating arrangements. I am made to sit between two people. There are two man seats where three people are sitting, with a table in between them. I am in the last row with the urinal to my left, then a person sitting on a bench. There are two rows of benches on the side where people are sitting without a table in between. Their drinks are being served on plastic chairs or tools. One guy, is sitting in the middle of the two rows on a plastic stool.
Someone comments, "this is nothing, it is going to get even more crowded". I look to the left and the right. I inform the guy to my right that I smoke. That guy looks dazed already, and he says "arre yaar" or "oh no". I look to the guy sitting to his right and see him holding a cigarette, and tell the guy sitting next to me that, "why don't you swap with the next guy, we are both smokers". He is basically too lazy to move, and just one of those guys who likes to complain. He looks at me for a long time, considering it, decides not to swap, and says, "just give me 2-3 puffs, the very ends of the cigarettes". I say okay.
One of the guys sitting across me is like one of the gunda types. He is sitting with only one other person on his bench. He is staring at me with bloodshot eyes, head tilted to the side, observing and contemplating. When he catches my eye, he tells me in particular, "why are you sitting like this, go inside, there are more benches and tables." I respond with a "It's fine, I am comfortable here."
I look around, they have started serving the drinks. No one is coming to get my order. I am apprehensive if the bar has white rum. There is cheering, and everyone is generally talkative and happy. They turn on the TV, which starts playing low budget local hip hop productions (I am very sure there will eventually be a tv channel for this). I comment to nobody in particular, just enjoying the crowd, "I haven't been to something so crowded before the pandemic." I then remove my mask, bravely.
A seat is placed in front of me, and a plastic stool behind that, where another guy sits. The guy who said its going to get even more crowded is right. The staff is adding benches and tables, which is also getting filled in in another room, behind the general goods store to the right, of us, as well as to the right of the urinal.
Finally, the waiter comes in with the orders. He is holding a glass of hard drinks, a thumbs up, a strong beer and some other things. The strong beer gets taken away from his hand by someone and he yells out "aye" at him, but shakes his head as he is probably accustomed to that behavior. He then plonks the hard drink down, but before he can add the ice and thumbs up, the guy to my right straight up downs it. The waiter is flabbergasted and says, "arre yaar, at least eat some chakna now, it is early in the morning, start with some prasad" and he shows the complementary sheera and farsan. I am amused and I go cheers to the guy, which makes a bunch of people around us laugh, because we are saying cheers after drinking, or rather drinking before saying cheers like true alcoholics. The guy again thinks for a while, then says cheers.
It's a jovial mood. There is some song playing on the tv, where a girl has a speedometer on her back. Someone from the neighboring table asks if there is a girl with a speedometer on her back. Someone else says yes. The guy who spoke first asks, "why?". At this point, me and the guy sitting on the stool opposite to me catch each others eyes, we are thinking the same thing at the same time. We both go, loudly, "vroom vroom", then laugh and give each other a high five. While high fiving, he has his middle finger folded over to give in extra punch.
I take a panorama on my smartphone. I tell everyone to smile when the camera points at them. People ask me to send it to them, and I add everyone to a WhatsApp group called "right now". I send it to them all. While using the smartphones, I can see the phone numbers as well, they all start with a +91. Everyone is pleased with the panorama. My drink comes in. I drink it and wake up.
No comments:
Post a Comment