Assembly Elections and Bacchanalian Orgies
With the state assembly elections coming up, a friend of mine called me up frantically and said that there will be no alcohol available on the 8th, 9th and 10th of this month, as alcohol is used as the standard means of buying people's votes.
This closure of watering holes, and restricting the supply of alcohol is a futile exercise as those with enough political clout would've stacked up adequate supplies, anticipating such a move by the election commission.
From what I heard, no retail outlets, pubs or bars would be able to sell alcohol during that time, although this wouldn't necessarily mean that people wouldn't have access to it. Somehow one's urge to drink beer intensifies under circumstances when it is prohibited to partake it. On that premise, the people of Gujrat should be getting drunk on the streets and partying like there is no tomorrow, but that is the stuff dreams are made of.
I've derived guilty pleasure out of drinking beer two days after Dr.Rajkumar died, when there was a state-wide bandh and no alcohol was being sold, and yet another time the same year on Gandhi jayanti, which is supposed to be a 'dry day'. Although the quantity consumed was not copious by anyone's standards, it was more about the cheap thrills derived out of violating rules harmlessly.
My friend who called me up at the beginning of this post is coming down to Mysore this weekend and has this idea of buying beer today, in enough quantities to tide him through until the day it starts flowing freely in the streets again, and wants to use my place in Mysore as a safehouse to stack it all up for his folks would probably not appreciate his industrious behaviour and foresight regarding this particular move.
Nor would mine, but I have some empty attic space to utilize.
Cheers to the elections!
This closure of watering holes, and restricting the supply of alcohol is a futile exercise as those with enough political clout would've stacked up adequate supplies, anticipating such a move by the election commission.
From what I heard, no retail outlets, pubs or bars would be able to sell alcohol during that time, although this wouldn't necessarily mean that people wouldn't have access to it. Somehow one's urge to drink beer intensifies under circumstances when it is prohibited to partake it. On that premise, the people of Gujrat should be getting drunk on the streets and partying like there is no tomorrow, but that is the stuff dreams are made of.
I've derived guilty pleasure out of drinking beer two days after Dr.Rajkumar died, when there was a state-wide bandh and no alcohol was being sold, and yet another time the same year on Gandhi jayanti, which is supposed to be a 'dry day'. Although the quantity consumed was not copious by anyone's standards, it was more about the cheap thrills derived out of violating rules harmlessly.
My friend who called me up at the beginning of this post is coming down to Mysore this weekend and has this idea of buying beer today, in enough quantities to tide him through until the day it starts flowing freely in the streets again, and wants to use my place in Mysore as a safehouse to stack it all up for his folks would probably not appreciate his industrious behaviour and foresight regarding this particular move.
Nor would mine, but I have some empty attic space to utilize.
Cheers to the elections!