I have been trying to quit drinking for quite some time now. For 12 years.
I am 22. I had my 1st beer at 10. It wasn't intentional. We had a "local fete" in the colony where we lived. I won the RAFFIL..is that how it's spelt? It was a beer bottle. A big 650 ml Sandpiper bottle. I lived alone at the time with my mother. My dad,in the army, being an infantry officer was away as usual. And strangely, he was and is a teetotaler. And yes, for an army officer to be a teetotaler is almost absurd if not abnormal. But he was. Nevertheless, I decided to give him the beer bottle as a 'Father's day' gift. So I did. He was touched but didn't really know what to do with it. He felt the pressure to drink it or at least try. I was looking up at him all starry eyed..I still do. A few very disgusted sips and he asked me to help him with it. Well, it was supposed to be a few sips but I, ended up finishing the whole thing. I thought I would throw up but I did manage to finish that entire 650 ml of sandpiper. Well, actually 500 ml if we are to assume that my dad managed to consume at least 250 ml of that ochre liquid which both, smelled and tasted, like urine. No,I haven't tasted piss but I have a feeling it would taste like beer if one were to try it. Maybe that's why Morarji Desai willingly drank his own piss for the sake of everlasting youth.
Few months later, Captain BS Negi (now colonel), one of my dad's favourite comrades from the days of fighting militancy in J&K, introduced me to Old Monk...I never saw myself as a girl who would "drink". This brilliant human being whom I, Indian as I am, chose to call Negi "uncle" even though he is not related to us in any way, used to come for the regular "call ons" and "regimental parties" to our house and I would watch in awe as he would guzzle peg after peg of "neat" rum, sometimes an entire bottle, in just about 2 hours. He had a reputation of being the only one who could hold down an entire bottle of Old Monk and you wouldn't even realise that he had anything to drink at all. Well anyway, amidst all that noise and chaos of partying, he noticed the curiosity in me..as to how he "managed". So he gave me my 1st rum..with water of course. And that was it. Within a couple of years I found myself wacking rum at every 'fauji' party. I was a kid and I wasn't even allowed into the bar but I managed somehow. I tried everything I could get my hands on but nothing, I believed, came even remotely close to the Monk.
My dad had and still does, a rather well stocked bar at home for his guests. He is a good host. Never drinks with them but that doesn't stop him for catering for special liquor from all over the world, to appease the specific tastes of his guests. I was 12. Being a girl, it wasn't possible for me to walk upto a liquor store and buy some. Moreover at 12 I looked 8. I had wild friends. Wild is to put it mildly. But strangely,none of them cared for alcohol. So then my only hope was to whisk some from the bar. I say whisk because I don't want to admit that I actually stole it. I realised that if I "whisked" rum from the bottles in the bar and replaced it with gin, my dad would never find out because the quantity would look the same. So that's what I did. He doesn't know till today. And never will. I realise now, the guests who were served that gin diluted rum must be wondering why it was always in our house that the Monk tatsed not so monk like.
In college, I would carry rum in my bag. Drink all the way to college while I walked the distance in winter. And no, no one ever found out. It was an all girl's college and they all thought I was on homeopathic medication and hence smelt weird. And yes, my rum was ALWAYS neat. The great Negi was my role model after all. I had to live upto it.
I even went carolling on Christmas with rum in my rucksack. And for the record, I am a very serious and devout Christian.
But in all those years, I was never happy about my addiction. I never got caught. I knew how to hold my drink and knew exactly how to just shut up and be a recluse whenever I did get tipsy. Each year I would promise that this would be the end. But it never was. There is one thing that gets me sozzled dangerously. Whisky. So I choose not to EVER drink it. Its easy since I detest it anyway.
I give up drinking every 6 months. Then I take it up again. I honestly believe that its something I can do without. It burns a hole in your pocket when consumed outside and it makes you fat and attracts attention for all the wrong reasons. So I decided never to drink ever again. And it wasn't difficult. Then I discovered something else....
I was trekking up a mountain with my dad in 2006 in Arunachal Pradesh in the North East of India. I love trekking so I willingly went up 8 kms just to visit a Buddhist village which happens to be under our Infantry Brigade..I'm glad I did because in the dark, dingy kitchen of the village headman's Buddhist home, was nectar..White...looked exactly like milk. Boiling in a pot. They offered me a taste. I took it gladly since I love milk. The 1st sip and I realised it was not milk. If you were to ever wonder what paradise would taste like if it were edible, then this would be it. They call it chaang and to me it tasted like champagne mixed with vodka. I don't know how many I had in the 10 mins that I was in that kitchen. Perhaps 2 glasses. Its been over a year now and I can't get it out of my head. And no they won't give you the recipe and if they do, its never the real recipe. Its closely guarded against us outsiders....
I am a forlorn soul now. Like in shitty movies when they meet their soulmates on a train or a flight and they know that THIS IS IT...but then they part ways and never see each other again and they keep wondering for the rest of their lives "what if"...that's what has happened to Chaang and me.
And now I confess that I have no bloody clue why I wrote this. I really don't. It's out of sleep deprivation and incessant reminders from my beloved mother that I'm a useless piece of turd..of course, expressed in more polite and civil a fashion.
I assure you that the other posts on this blog are more meaningful.
God bless you while I writhe in pain that Chaang and I shall never be one.......
By the way, I am a hypocrite. I don't like people who drink and I choose to judge them.
I assure you that the other posts on this blog are more meaningful.
God bless you while I writhe in pain that Chaang and I shall never be one.......
By the way, I am a hypocrite. I don't like people who drink and I choose to judge them.
