‘Drink is the sea actually, you can sink all your worries & revelries into’ on Sunday evening my not so normal friend uttered while trying to stand on his feet after his nip of rum before going for loo. We looked at him aghast by then he slowly turned himself & started walking towards lavatory. Perhaps mid way he came back as he went again after finishing his earlier statement, ‘…& yourself too’ he took longer time now to come back & left us pondering on his punch line. We were about to fall off our chairs this time not under alcoholic influence but listening his philosophy. The guy never spoke anything worth something during his whole life of forty years as he hardly tested the might of drinks. ‘fool turning into prophet for the first time I’m seeing’ another friend who got his senses under control with his philosophy quipped, ‘otherwise this turns prophets into fools’ he finished his glass with raising it bit to make us note that ‘this’ means the liquor. ‘Just one more’ I ordered the waiter for another round as with all those philosophers one normal guy got to accompany & live into reality.
But, I normally make my drinks appointments with friends who are in varied walks of life. With architect & contractor relieves me of not being dry like cement & brick & of course homeless, with readers & thinkers I feel at home as getting glasses before forty, over a glass of whiskey made me think I read more. With salaried friends I get to enjoy myself more than drinks does as they are under pressure of getting to work next morning anyhow even after a couple of pegs & I can allow myself skipping from work next day. With doctors, it assures me of my longevity, otherwise why any sensible doctor would drink? One of my professor friend too joins me taking due respect & after follow ups. His company amuses me of saving myself repeating the same shit things years after years. Yet, I envy him for his lifelong exposure to colourful greenery around in the college & his chance to speak to any of them at his will. Finance guys are my regular invitees & hosts. Their company never let me think of me getting bankrupt. One of them has pet line of his sweet wish, ‘I’d like all my friends to get millionaire, and I’ll get so automatically. Since likeminded only sit to drink’.
‘If drinks are so bad, why they say a peg a day keeps heart attack away?’ my friend who failed to become doctor & thinks he knows more than doctors do says with utter conviction. ‘Look you never stop at that a peg & progress to more ending yourself a stooge’ I tried to pacify him. He wouldn’t budge I know him top to toe. Anyway, drinks are drinks as fetal as a baby cobra if you take limited or a mommy cobra if unlimited. Saved yourself this time from its fangs lucky enough, yet luck may not come your way always.
‘I’d be nuisance if I take more…’ one senior civil servant from Australia was trying to hold his friend across the ocean I overheard during a cocktail party. It moved me. Pressing or compelling one for more is making him uncomfortable or killing him in short.
‘If you ask me’, I spoke to my friend over our discussions on the spirituality & religion on the moving station wagon wherein the driver is carefully chosen as non drinker in the summer night under twinkling stars. The drinks were being served & an enjoyed discussion was in progress. Outside it was fun the cool breeze from the open windows was touching not just the skin yet the soul. Suddenly the driver stopped the vehicle to inform us there are hundreds of deer grazing at the side of road. We peeped out to see them. Their beauty moved us. ‘The god has created them & this too’, I whispered lifting the half full glass. ‘If you kill them it is sin, if you kill yourself with this it is sin again. Enjoy both!’
This time it was my turn to wonder at myself, how could I get philosophical? The god is great!
By
Vijay Yelmelwar
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