To drink or not to drink
So, can I sip on my Bloody Mary or not? Am a bit confused over the new norms set by our new social monitors who have a violence virus inserted in their bloodstream.
Apparently, for the initial days following the Mangalore pub incident, I could not — at all — drink, being a woman. Now, I am told I can, but only in the confines of my home, not in a pub or any other public place. Men can, anywhere anytime. Women can’t — never and nowhere.
It is okay for me to not drink, because I seldom do. but a friend of mine is outraged enough to do what she has never believed in — fight for a cause. But this one is really close to her heart, or should I say bloodstream. She wants to know if the Mangalore Sena will smash her Belgian glassware at home if she is caught drinking in her room.
She wants to also know if she can be a social drinker at private parties, or can she drink if her husband orders her to? Will the Sena catch her for being a pativrata nari carrying out her husband’s wish that she click the glass and say cheers with him? Or will they smash her private bar for not drinking and, thus, not following the orders of the man of the house.
Also, can she go and buy liquor from the vend? Can she buy it for her husband if not for herself? And if that’s the case, will she have to carry a letter from her spouse authorising her to pick up this, that and the other?
Above all, should she work on getting a doctor’s prescription saying a drink or two at a pub is a life-saving must for her? Another one wanted to know if she could drink at a pub in a saree. Would that placate the monitors a wee bit? All these existential questions have been plaguing women who love their drink. They have been glued to their respective television sets to know the last word on this “life-changing” controversy.
Really, it is issues like these which have so much nuisance value that they catch national headlines and stay high on the controversial barometer. They also act as the perfect catapults for little-known outfits working to make an identity for themselves by hook or by crook.
The Ram Sena of Mangalore is one such organisation. Raj Thackeray’s MNS is another. Thackeray used the parochially volatile issue of Maharashtrians vs Outsiders to make a name for himself in, perhaps, the only way he could have.
It is people like him and the Ram Sena acolytes who show the loopholes in our democracy and mindsets. That any loony fringe outfit could be allowed to actually storm a licenced public place and molest women for drinking and wearing jeans is quite a slap on our system. That there was ever a debate on the right and wrong of it, was killing. That the goons have become a national talking point is even worse than death.
The thing to do with them would have been to take them in and keep them there till they understood the perils of breaking a law.
Instead, we have a Chief Minister, may be not justifying the violence but explaining why the trigger to the violence was justifiable. “Pub culture” is not right, he says. But there will be no cancellation of licences of such pubs. Would you not call it double standards? If some journo were to really go into the issue, one is sure he would find that more than half the liquor vends and pubs are owned by these very politicians.
Also, there is this hue and cry about the Ram Sena chief being arrested, not for the Mangalore incident, but for an inflammatory speech glorifying the Malegaon blast. I, for one, support the Government action. If you hear what he had to say on Malegaon you would agree that this was much more serious than the Mangalore incident.
Of course, Mangalore was outrageous but the goons who did it should be punished and the Ram Sena banned, if not for anti-social behaviour then at least for anti-national inclinations.
Apparently, for the initial days following the Mangalore pub incident, I could not — at all — drink, being a woman. Now, I am told I can, but only in the confines of my home, not in a pub or any other public place. Men can, anywhere anytime. Women can’t — never and nowhere.
It is okay for me to not drink, because I seldom do. but a friend of mine is outraged enough to do what she has never believed in — fight for a cause. But this one is really close to her heart, or should I say bloodstream. She wants to know if the Mangalore Sena will smash her Belgian glassware at home if she is caught drinking in her room.
She wants to also know if she can be a social drinker at private parties, or can she drink if her husband orders her to? Will the Sena catch her for being a pativrata nari carrying out her husband’s wish that she click the glass and say cheers with him? Or will they smash her private bar for not drinking and, thus, not following the orders of the man of the house.
Also, can she go and buy liquor from the vend? Can she buy it for her husband if not for herself? And if that’s the case, will she have to carry a letter from her spouse authorising her to pick up this, that and the other?
Above all, should she work on getting a doctor’s prescription saying a drink or two at a pub is a life-saving must for her? Another one wanted to know if she could drink at a pub in a saree. Would that placate the monitors a wee bit? All these existential questions have been plaguing women who love their drink. They have been glued to their respective television sets to know the last word on this “life-changing” controversy.
Really, it is issues like these which have so much nuisance value that they catch national headlines and stay high on the controversial barometer. They also act as the perfect catapults for little-known outfits working to make an identity for themselves by hook or by crook.
The Ram Sena of Mangalore is one such organisation. Raj Thackeray’s MNS is another. Thackeray used the parochially volatile issue of Maharashtrians vs Outsiders to make a name for himself in, perhaps, the only way he could have.
It is people like him and the Ram Sena acolytes who show the loopholes in our democracy and mindsets. That any loony fringe outfit could be allowed to actually storm a licenced public place and molest women for drinking and wearing jeans is quite a slap on our system. That there was ever a debate on the right and wrong of it, was killing. That the goons have become a national talking point is even worse than death.
The thing to do with them would have been to take them in and keep them there till they understood the perils of breaking a law.
Instead, we have a Chief Minister, may be not justifying the violence but explaining why the trigger to the violence was justifiable. “Pub culture” is not right, he says. But there will be no cancellation of licences of such pubs. Would you not call it double standards? If some journo were to really go into the issue, one is sure he would find that more than half the liquor vends and pubs are owned by these very politicians.
Also, there is this hue and cry about the Ram Sena chief being arrested, not for the Mangalore incident, but for an inflammatory speech glorifying the Malegaon blast. I, for one, support the Government action. If you hear what he had to say on Malegaon you would agree that this was much more serious than the Mangalore incident.
Of course, Mangalore was outrageous but the goons who did it should be punished and the Ram Sena banned, if not for anti-social behaviour then at least for anti-national inclinations.
Published on February 1, 2009 in Sunday Pioneer http://www.dailypioneer.com/153537/To-drink-or-not-to-drink.html
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