Underwater temple and paper piano
I saw a couple jumping into the water and from inside the water I saw them kissing each other once, then swimming deeper towards the Sri Ram temple at the bottom of the lake. I swam to the temple and visited it. I saw a hawker distributing prasad so I accepted a packet. I opened it and ate a little boondi from it. I realized I couldn't stay without breath under water for a long time so I started going back upwards. I called my sister and asked her to leave with me. She was puzzled but she did. I pushed her upwards, then started swimming towards the surface. I had to go through a thin opening which had stairs below it. I then realized that the temple was submerged in the lake but wasn't when was originally built. Sensing that I might be out of breath, I left the packet of prasad at the start of the opening for better comfort in swimming.
On reaching the surface, I started feeling hungry and regretted leaving prasad back at the lake. I looked around for vendors selling prasad but didn't find anyone selling the same prasad. Finally I asked one of them for 3 out of 5 diff. kinds of prasads that he was selling but he refused, as he sold them all as a set and not individually and I didn't have enough money to buy the whole set.
My sister and I were to wait for a vehicle to take us home but we waited for sometime and it didn't come. Coincidentally I saw Alok, Sachin and other IIIT-H friends who are currently working and staying in Bangalore leaving the temple in their car. Alok looked out of the window and in his usual style greeted me.
Apparently some of the guys in that car were to be dropped somewhere so it would take more time than usual for us to reach home. We made a few minutes stop at their place. I told them that it reminded me of my school and the place looked like a part of Army cantonment area. It did have small rooms arranged in a circle, a TV room, a playground and a large area for exercises. I saw a playroom with a paper piano in it. My sister went there and started playing the piano. I was astonished to see that piano make music. My friends and I walked around the place and talked for a few minutes. I asked them if there was anything available to eat and although I had a biriyani and something else, still I was hungry. My sister came to us from the other room and said that the paper piano was dismantled. I saw the broken into pieces piano and got a little worried. My friends said it can be fixed easily and that I should not worry.
I was at a marketplace (sadar bazar, Jalandhar, lookalike) with my father and some friend of his. My father left me with him to buy something from some shop a little far. My father's friend asked me if I would like to have something. I said, and he brought me a large hot-dog and something else in packing. My father called us outside so that we may leave. While leaving the shop, I forgot to take my half-eaten hot-dog and the something else in packing. Halfway out of the marketplace, I remembered that I had left my stuff at that shop. My father and his friend looked at each other, concerned. "Never mind, it'll not take long," my father's friend said and we went back. It was closing time for all the shops. Initially we were not sure if we were at the same shop because the place looked like an abandoned patch, as if nothing ever existed there! There was a man taking rounds of the street, asking everyone to close down their shops. He wore a uniform similar to the security guards' at IIIT-H. On watching us enter the abandoned shop, he walked to us and said we were not allowed to enter that place because it was past closing time for shops. We tried reasoning with him that we'd left our stuff inside the shop but he wouldn't listen. Finally we had to give him a little something, which my father and his friend debated upon, and went into the abandoned shop, only to find my stuff lying there, untouched, among the emptiness.
Later, we walked the empty streets of the city. There was enough lighting, both natural and artificial to confuse a brightly lit night to a cloudy daytime. I saw a big banner of indibloggers on our way back and got excited about it. I pointed to it, saying that they'd have their meeting in the same building which hosted the banner. My father asked me "What do you guys really do in such meetings?" not convinced those meetings and get-together serve any purpose.
I saw myself in a long table conference type of meeting, sitting close to the head of the meeting. Somebody, I think it was Mux, greeted him, "Konbanwa" which the boss interrupted saying it was morning time. The boss asked others if they knew the Japanese greeting for "good morning". Many, including me and Mux said "Oya sumi masen" with a little hesitation. He repeated the greeting with better intonation and pronunciation. He finally asked who knew basic Japanese. Many hands shot up, and it was then I saw Mohit sitting in the meeting, a couple of chairs away from me.
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