Saturday 11 October 2014

-OH Crap

Statutory Warning: Alcohol consumption is injurious to your health and destructive to your life.
And so is consuming that greased Puri at the mess. Except when was the last time you felt like dancing after having 5 of them? 




So, my liver recently lost its virginity to a Smirnoff shot. And my brain lost its sanity to the next one. Then my bladder lost its...well I drank is what I mean to say. And drinking for the first time feels like preparing for an exam with just a couple of hours remaining; because you're shocked out of your wits, grinning and giggling at the meaninglessness of the whole thing, wondering if anything good is ever going to come out of it, and deeply regretting not having done it before.

Also, have you heard of this confidential organ called the brain-to-mouth-filter which prevents you from pulling off stunts like-
(a) explaining to an acquaintance how his pronunciation of the word 'ambassador' as amba-sadder  automatically gives you a lifelong lasting license to judge him
(b) conveying to a team member that his only contribution to the project has been making lame jokes in the meetings
(c) confessing to your friend that the excessive bass in his voice could be the reason for your regular headaches?

Well, alcohol takes good care that the filter is tweaked right off its position causing a burning sensation in the esophagus, filling you up with all the guts and balls in the world, until stability is regained and stupidity realized. Because, if there is one thing that's perfectly soluble in alcohol besides Sprite and Coke, it's inhibitions.

So it's preferable for you to stay away from crowds, especially when you've got nothing nice to say. Which is when your introversion comes to good use because you're already like, Nah, I'm not going there, that's too much society at one place.

Your perspective of the world begins to gradually change, with a slight blur obviously; and your appreciative and argumentative capabilities take an upward gradient, with a slight slur obviously.
And you ever so slowly time-travel back to the pre-independence era, as the spirits stir up some old memories and English words forcefully fuse themselves into your speech. And to prove my point, here lies an excerpt from a vodka driven conversation I, well let's say, overheard-

At S.T.P.
Guy1:  Samosa mast hai.
Guy2:  Haan achha hai.

After 1st Shot
Guy1:  Samosa sahi hai dude! Ekdum epic!
Guy2:  Haan man, true.

After 2nd 
Guy1:  No no I'm still not drunk. Normal only. But yaaar! This is the best ever Samosa I ever had in my freaking life ever man!
Guy2:  Yeah it's good, I get it.

3rd Shot
Guy1:  I think ab thodi chadh rahi hai bey. Why are they not changing the channel man?! Oh that's a signboard. Shit! Also this Samosa is exquisite man! Like. This. Is. The. Shizz! Like if I had my whole life in one hand and this Samosa in another, I..
Guy2:  Now you're embarrassing yourself.

4th
Guy1:  Dude dude dude.
Guy2:  What?
Guy1:  You ever thought about why all expletives are like all about sex? Never thought? Wait I'll tell you. It's because sex means kids, and kids means responsibility, and everybody hates responsibility.
Guy2:  Good to know. Thanks.
Guy1:  Hehe LOL. And bro, one more thing.
Guy2:  What?
Guy1:  The Samosa here izz da-
Guy2:  *dunks the glass down his throat*  

And this is why petty units like pint and quarter (quarter being 180 ml, and not 250 ml, because that's the exact amount of alcohol you need to ingest before you stop caring about the metric system) can't really estimate how drunk you're, but {No. of English words used/Sentence} certainly can.

So if your friend begins from- "BC mera anda bhurji kab ayega?" and later ends up at- "I'd relish this dish more if my scrambled eggs were sautéd with some finely chopped spring onions", it's time you put a full stop to your liver-banging session, eat some Mentos and go home.

That said, after a threshold limit, drinking turns into a truly meta experience: your each and every neuron acting the exact same way like you, procrastinating and postponing on signalling and stuff; just lazying around drowsily, too relaxed to trigger reflexes and responses; and you desperately trying to think sense with these sluggish unicellular losers; almost realizing why the world hated you all your life.

And I say this from my first-hand experience.
At the campus main-gate security room. On 22nd September.
A breathalyzer in my mouth. Two equally dazed friends by my side.
All singularly staring into an ethanol induced oblivion. Getting photographed by a guard.

But obviously the whole scenario wasn't sinking in, escapism being a salient feature of intoxication, which leaves you floating comfortably above reality; and this is precisely why these things are fatal: drinks, marijuana, LSD, crystal meth, cocaine, college orientations.

Now a video footage of the scene would reveal how perfectly sober we three were on the outside, only a video footage couldn't show you the frigging fragrance. And considering how efficiently brown liquors can transform you into alcohol scented agarbattis, it wasn't surprising that all the faked sobriety and smoothness of Brandy couldn't get us through the gate.

So I recounted all the breathalyzer cheats I had heard since my first year (like- "don't exhale, inhale"; "slow down your respiration"; "make the right sounds"; "hold it with your mouth and let your nose do the breathing"; "oh my god baby, yes!"; etc) and tried out my luck thrice; miserably failing, annoying the guards and the already caught friends around, and finally realized that I had totally blown it. Quite literally.

Next up was the toughest part: writing an apology letter; when we three looked at each other in utter desperation until one finally got down to writing; whose work was blatantly plagiarized immediately, in the weirdest handwriting possible, and then it began to dawn. We were on the path to screwdom.

The next day was filled with threats of the infamous Disciplinary Committee meeting, which is basically a semi-circular arrangement of pissed-off faculty members who gang up on you from all sides with self-righteousness until you start suffocating with guilt; fondly known as DisCo; which seems fitting because-
(a) Alcohol is one of the prime reasons why you're here dancing around aimlessly.
(b) You've managed to get in, so you've got to face the music whether you like it or not.
(c) You've never met most of the people around before but that's no reason for them to not judge you.

So, no wonder we tried talking our way out of the DisCo meeting with the Hostel Warden and the Chief Warden. And consequentially, I had to come out clean and confess all my sins to Father. In a phone conversation that started with-

Me:  Hello Dad. So me and my friends went outside for dinner and we had a little party sort of.
Dad: Hmm.

And I bet my brandy on that hmm that he knew it already. And here's a heads up to all the dads reading this post, if there's any, by a one-in-a-billion chance: if your son/daughter ever calls you specifically to your cellphone anytime between 8 am to 1 am and begins the conversation in a solemn tone with anything similar to-"Dad, me and my friends went outside yesterday and had a party..." hold your breath; because the climax of this story is going to suck worse than Rockstar's.

Amazingly and fortunately, he was awesomely cool about it. Unlike the Chief of course.  

The Chief was mostly concerned with the low price of alcohol in Goa, which he attributed to "spiking the liquor with drugs" to adulterate it and make it addictive. Which is fundamentally against the core principles of addiction and adulteration. Firstly, because alcohol doesn't need an external agent to make it addictive. And secondly, because when the rates are already so rock-bottom level low, the only drug a seller could afford to adulterate alcohol with is Disprin.

But as much as I wanted to say, "Ab 17 rupey mein bachhe ki jaan loge kya?" all I could manage to mumble in the end was my pledge to- "never drink alcohol again in my whole entire life!" which was sworn with as much sincerity and honesty as the good old- "All Indians are my brothers and sisters."

Then passed a week. And we were called for DisCo anyway.

There were five of us standing outside the conference room. Three ourselves. Another with a seriously bad case of weed. And another guy caught due to just "having a Breezer", which was unfortunate, because it's kind of like being put on a trial along with bank robbers when all you have done is steal a cat from a lonely old woman. So we called bullshit on that. Then they called me inside.

Lasting for roughly 3 minutes each, it was a much better experience than we had imagined. Part of the deal being, calling a parent. Not on phone, but to campus.

And thus ended my bittersweet relationship with alcohol. Turning me to teetotalism temporarily.

So kids, shortly put, the moral of the story is:
(a) If you have any rebellious ideas about indulging in alcohol and/or drugs, please postpone them until after your graduation. It's getting pretty inconvenient in here.
(b) Letter writing is a very important skill. All the more when you're drunk. So practise it. And have some synonyms to "sorry" and "regret" always in handy, just in case.

And now winding it up; with warm regards.

Yours soberly.