"I had a dream"

With due apologies to Martin Luther King, I had a dream - that's a lie, I have had many, many, countless many dreams, each one strange, stranger than fiction, stranger than truth...... for a dream lies in that half-real world that exists yet does not.

So, a couple of days back, there we were, four friends - who shall remain unnamed - we were holidaying in Tahiti, which, for the purposes of THIS dream was an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Western Africa instead of being where it truly is

A fabulous beach, spakling clean,  crystal clear waters, mild weather, a perfect holiday. And, my friends and I, enjoying our time, happily chatting among ourselevs - as always about insurance, yuck!! - and people we know. Across the sea, a few miles away, another island, Fiji, this one too, miraculously "transferred" from the Indian Ocean to a few miles away from the African shores. Walking along that beach, a good friend, once upon a time a customer, now a friend.... we get to talking, we can hear each other despite the distance, no cell phones, thank God!

He is upset with something - some wrong advice, some loss that seems to have been lost in the fine print of his insurance policy. In a fit of anger, petulantly, he stomps on the beach and the waves rise menacingly and come racing like a tsunami across the miles between Fiji and Tahiti. On THIS beach the four of us scrmable for higher ground while, away on Fiji my friend laughs at our plight. Suddenly he dpesn't look all that friendly, no more!

We scamper, running as fast as we could, reach the hilly slops and climb.... and climb.... and climb until we're at the very top

From our vantage point we look below, behind and realise we've just managed to escape death and destruction. On the other side, behind the hills, there is a road, looks familiar to two of us. We walk along the road as it curves to the right and, in minutes, we realise that we've reached Mangor Hill, in Vasco da Gama, Goa, India! Sheer relief, having reached safety and our own country! And, Goa, after all, is Goa - carnival time, carnival country! Gargling our mouths with Kings beers we now walk into THE casino, for, when in Goa one must life life large!!

So, there we are, in a small, seedy looking hall, redolent of the smells of beers and sausages, sorpotel and vindaloo.... it is "early morning" yet, just around 11 or so. A few tables, desultorily occupied by a few hard-core casino junkies, playing - yes, I joke not - playing CARROM! Not baccarat, not poker, not blackjack but carrom with Cashew feni on the side.



My friend decides to play because, as he solemnly explains to me, he was a junior national champ in Table tennis and carrom is a table game too. Perhaps its the beers that we gargled, but the rest of us agree and help him along. So, pretty damn quick there we are, rooting for him as he splurges all his cash away, cheering him every time his striker goes into the pocket! "Ace!", "Ace!!" we cry lustily, all the while the bored board man sweeps our cash right into his bank.  

All of a sudden the beers lose their gargle effect and we wake up to the realisation that our man is losing us our money! We remember that all of us had given our wallets to him for safekeeping back when we were still in Tahiti before the tsunami. So now, that "bored banker" has suddenly become our Enemy - and all hell breaks loose. Goa has never seen a gang of insurance goons on the rampage before and before you can say "Vasco da Gama" we've broken a few heads, taken ALL the cash out of the counter and are sauntering our way back to our official quarters at Hill Crest Apartments at Mangor Hill, Vasco da Gama, Goa, India....

I woke, silently convulsed with laughter, shaking with mirth. My wife mumbled, grumbled and peeped into her cell-phone to see the time. "It's 5:15 in the morning!" she chid-chidaoed, "Go back to sleep" she said....

Isn't there something, somewhere, about early morning dreams coming true???? God Forbid!!