Archive for the 'In the drink' Category

Wine, women & song

wine.jpg

A typical wedding reception where I live includes a lot of drinking. The host actually gauges the level of a guest having a good time by the quantity of alcohol consumed by that person. And of course, there are plenty of people indulging in rambunctious laughing/talking/dancing. Naturally, the music is loud and there’s a great big, nicely decorated bar in the corner.

I dont have any problem with the above things. If people dont really care whether they have to crawl their way back home on all four limbs, that is their personal choice. What I dont like is the automatic classification of wine & women. The song, as I said before is loud and usually a racy, dance number.

The first thing people will ask me is if I’d like to drink some wine. Sometimes I’m asked for a second choice of red or white wine but thats usually the limitation for the drink offered to a woman. The rest of the guys get their whiskey, rum and what not.

I dont even like wine. That I will drink it anyway is another story.

As I looked around for other women, in the hope of spotting someone who didnt have a wine glass in her hand, I finally saw a grandma getting her glass filled with a big fat, patiala peg. After which the host diligently placed the entire bottle of brandy by her glass.

Either I will have to summon enough courage to widen the range of drink at the very beginning the next time onwards. Or I shall have to wait till I grow old till I am accepted to be a legitimate non-wine person, I think.

New beginnings

I am happy to say that my hangover this year was quite harmless compared to last year’s. I take it this is a sign of me being more suave in handling my drink. I do suffer from patches of amnesia only to have the puzzled look on my face being replaced by one of horror as people recounted all the things that I did/say later on. I shrugged it off saying - I dont live on yesterday while my motto is next week. A very nice Alanis Morissette song, I must say.

I remember a lot of dancing. Of course the music was so loud that I could hardly hear the other person on the phone when I called friends up to wish them at midnight. Naturally, my phone balance had dwindled down to a measly 10 rupees by the next morning. Moral of the story - ditch your phone somewhere next time you’re planning to intoxicate yourself and wont be able to make out whether you’ve been talking for 5 minutes or the last one hour.

I also remember lighting firecrackers sometime around midnight. No idea as to where they came from. Some of us had to get new hair styles the next day because of the bonfire singeing the hairline. Thankfully no one caught on fire. If anyone had, the rescuer would also have been burnt to death although the alcohol would have made sure no one felt the pain too much.

New beginning for a new year. Of course, I wont be recounting all kinds of sordid drunken details henceforth. But it was a nice way to say goodbye to a good year. Now its time to grow up.