💬 The dog that sleeps in the middle of our lane

There's a brown dog in our lane that sleeps right in the middle of the road. 2pm, full sun. Auto drivers honk, school kids step over him, a milkman on a scooter curves around. The dog doesn't even open an eye. One ear twitches, that's all you get from him. I've watched this for 3 weeks now and nobody has ever tried to move him. Yesterday a man in a white car got stuck behind him. He honked twice, then a long one. The dog yawned. The man got out and stood there with his hands on his hips. A kid selling guavas by the wall near the corner said, uncle, he was here before you. Please wait. The man laughed, got back in and reversed all the way to the main road. I started calling him Raja. My daughter named him something else, so now he has 2 names. I put a steel bowl of water near the wall in the morning. It's empty by evening. I don't feed him. A neighbour told me if I feed him he'll move into our house. He's probably right. That dog already acts like he pays the rent and the electricity bill. Most afternoons I stand at the window for 10 minutes just to watch him sleep. Nothing happens. Cars go around. The sun moves and he shifts 2 feet to keep it on his back. Yesterday he was gone and I felt weirdly lost. He was back by 4, same spot. Nobody had moved the water bowl, so I think he'd just been to the tea stall.

One ear twitching is all you get, I love that dog already. We have a brown dog near our house in Moosapet who sleeps in front of the tea stall, and the owner puts a steel bowl of water beside him every afternoon. I think the dog owns the lane and we are just visitors. Nobody calls him anything but Boss. Does your lane have a name for the dog?

Our version is a shopkeeper near Mehdipatnam bus stop who feeds the street cats every morning at 7. 5 or 6 of them sit outside his shutter before he even opens it. They know his scooter sound. He buys a packet of milk just for them. Told me once his wife thinks he's wasting 30 rupees a day. He said it's the best 30 rupees he spends all day.