This whole week I have gone without a drink. Easy for a non-drinkatarian (a term I coined hoping to enter into the Oxford dictionary one day), but not so for a drinkatarian.
I don`t know if you have noticed…but I close my eyes and nose while drinking. I used to drink with both my eyes and nose open, but one day I realized when I looked at the drink and smelt it…my mouth watered which diluted the liquor. It didn`t really matter if I was drinking rum or whiskey…but diluted beer tastes like horse piss. Keep it out of the fridge for half an hour and it starts tasting like a Cow`s.
The silver lining is I am saving some money. I used to drink a lot when I had my own business – my company rules allowed me to claim my drinking bills. Now, that I work for a dotcom and it doesn`t allow claiming of liquor bills…I am kind of stuck.
But saving money at what cost? Didn`t somebody say good health was more important than good wealth? I went to the doctor yesterday and he said my body didn`t have enough water. If only I could have a few drinks, I could have used up a lot of ice cubes – to increase the water content in my body.
It is kind of ironic because I am sitting in Kerala (the state with the maximum per-capita consumption of alcohol) and going alcohol-less. The amount of alcohol (in ml) consumed by an average man in Kerala is equal to the amount of petrol (in ml) used up by a Mumbai guy to travel to his office. Just that the Mumbai dude doesn`t reek of alcohol when he reaches office.
I did speak to Rekha about me visiting the local bar but she advised me against it. She said at least three of my fellow drinkers might crawl to her house and tell her father that I was seen drinking. All this even before I reached home.
“What a heinous crime? I wouldn`t want to be caught drinking and then jailed for 30 years,” I sneered at my wife.
I wonder how anonymous will the Alcoholics Anonymous group will be in Cherrukunnu, Kannur – a small town where everybody knows everybody else.
Post Script: Seventeen people have already come home to tell my father in law that they saw me smoking. To cater to the increasing crowd coming in to report the incident, we have re-laid the road to our house, have placed a register where the visitors can record their names and have also placed a pot of chilled water.
Other Must Reads
Accepting gifts from relatives
Familiarity breeds contempt and children
Rekha and I visit Mocha, Chennai
Why should you marry the girl you love?
Narain Karthikeyan meets Sania Mirza
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