The Exciting Life & Times of Rustam- IV

By Ashima Bhardwaj

Previously: Rustam is lauded for his intelligence by Sir Bruno and is astounded by it. Sir Bruno explains to him the whole incident of attacking him and the reason behind it. He successfully escorts Sir Bruno to the venue. Sir Bruno and I kept ourselves in the shadows, for it would be strange for people to see such a well bred dog as Sir Bruno, walking with a mere, street dog. We took a turn that led straight to the main gate of the City Park, where the get-together was about to start. None of us spoke until we got there, except that I kept trying to look at him up close without turning my neck. So I ended up squinting beyond the ability of my eyes. Cheers and shouts of joy were heard from the crowd when we arrived. Most of the members of the Council were there, except the Secretary, the Treasurer, and a few of my friends. This included Brownie. I wondered where he was. The whole atmosphere was that of friendship, fun and laughter. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, for they had arrived way before the announced time. ‘Street dogs!’, I thought to myself. ‘Have nothing to do except show up at gatherings before time.’The thing that I had failed to realise so far was that in my absence, Brownie had spread word that every member could bring two friends for the purpose of ‘socialising’. This I found out from some random guests who were already high and on the verge of losing their senses completely. They were laughing while saying, ‘This Council sure has a lot more connections than we estimated. Thanks to Brownie, we got to see it for ourselves.’ ‘God! Brownie! I’ll punch you the next time I see you for this.’ I made a promise to myself. He hadn’t realised that making an open invitation to all normal dogs, he had opened the floodgates for our rivals to gel with members of our Council. Trouble was just around the corner. But first I had to find him and escort the Secretary of the Council, Sir Rome and the Treasurer, Sir Paris to the venue. This was going to be easy since they were neighbours but after the incident at Sir Bruno’s residence, I was a little shaken. I wondered what this visit held in store for me. Both Sir Rome and Sir Paris were called so for the sake of giving them respect, but weren’t knights. They had raised this issue at the Annual Meeting of the Greats, held in Milan every year. They argued that they held positions of equal importance in the Council and, therefore, must be addressed with reverence. Ever since then, they had been treated on equal footing with Sir Bruno. Sir Rome’s master was a very fashionable young man, who had inherited him along with his property from his father, who had kicked the bucket only a few months ago. The young man had named him Rome, when he was only a child. And his neighbour was another impressionable young lady who had then, named her dog, what else, but Paris. I didn’t have a long way to go, since they lived just across the boulevard from Sir Bruno’s mansion.