Life Saving Sips

Once every couple of years or so, the last week of December is that time of the year when I indulge in a bit of drinking. It might come as a surprise to many that I drink but it is something I do for friendships’s sake (not a very valid reason, I know) but being a loyal friend there are a few things I am willing to do for them. I share a couple of pegs with a bunch of overseas friends once every two years. A friend who lives in Australia had dropped in so I decided to lift my self-imposed ban on alcohol and drink a wee bit to make my friends happy. Of course, it also makes me happy because it brings back a lot of memories of the time when I used to drink.

I started to drink around the time I was in the final year of college when I stayed in the hostel on and off. It was New Year’s eve and a time when students living in hostels go completely crazy and out of control. I, along with two or three friends decided to have a few drinks in a friend’s room in keeping with the trend. The friend, a crafty fellow, mixed a potent cocktail to us first time drinkers. He spiked our beers with generous measures of whisky which had us singing into the wee hours. It is a recorded fact that I am not known to sing, least of all in public. I never sing in public, not even at gun point. But that night, my friends told me a couple of days later, I went through a lot of hit songs including the National Anthem.

Of course, that was the only time anyone saw me sing in public. Another time I drank I nearly burnt myself to death. During the final year of college we were supposed to live in a village for six months to experience the rural life. I liked no one in our group of six except a senior who was repeating the year. He was a good cook but was too fond of alcohol. It was too boring in the small village so once or twice a week we caught a bus to the nearest town which was an hour’s journey. Since we were students and did not want to be seen drinking, we had our drinks in the town and caught the last bus to the village.

On one such trip I somehow had more than my normal quota of whisky. I don’t remember how we got to the village and to our rooms but I remember to this day the bright glow of the carpet that had caught fire while I was asleep on it. Sometime during the night a mosquito coil (they hadn’t yet come out with mosquito mats or liquid dispensers) fell on the carpet on which I lay drunk out of my mind. It was a thick cotton carpet and burnt slowly without going up in flames. Another couple of centimeters and my blanket would have caught fire and that would have been the end of Mr. Vinod Ekbote at the young age of 21.

Luckily, the thick smoke from the slowly burning carpet brought us out of the whisky stupor. My friend and I stared at the burning carpet that glowed brightly in the dark as if it was a fireworks display. For a long time it did not occur to us to put out the fire. Finally, after a lot of marveling about how I had escaped being incinerated by a few millimeters, my friend came to life and put out the fire. When I got home months later I couldn’t really explain to my mom how the carpet came to be burnt in such an interesting pattern.

If it had happened to anyone else they would have certainly said that it was an eye-opener and promptly stopped drinking. Not me. I continued to drink rather mindlessly, for a long time after that incident. Later on, I realized I wasn’t enjoying it (I never enjoyed it anyway) and put a complete stop to my drinking. Not that I was a regular tippler but I drank now and then especially after we got our stipend. Now I drink about two pegs every two years or so like I did a fortnight ago with two of my dear friends.

2013 will be the year when I will be having my next drink unless Penguin or Harper Collins decide they better publish my novel before that, which would be one good reason to celebrate with a drink.