IDHAR UDHAR KI BAAT 46 (DEATH WARRANT SIGNED BY FATHER) Brig PS Gothra (Retd)

"Cheers!" said the two kids, aged two and three years and lifted their glasses to drink, when their mother came and snatched those glasses.  She could assess that the children had poured acid from a bottle kept in the store. 

As a child I also have secretly poured some liquor from whatever was leftover in a party.  I was fascinated with the way people did 'cheers', or sprinkled some drops of alcohol before partaking or tapping the bottom of the bottle before opening the cork or pouring beer in a slanting glass. Although I hated the bitter taste.

 

I have lost eight maternal cousins due to addiction. Unfortunately they were between 35 and 48 years of age. And recently I got the news of the death of a deceased cousin's widow.  The unfortunate part is that her son cannot be conveyed the message because he is untraceable in Europe being a heavy drug addict. 

In the conversations with my cousins in their terminal days I could gather that they all took to drinking because they were fascinated with that 'cheers' or other drinking rituals. One of them when  he had two days left  said, "Bhaji(brother) please save me. I don't want to die. But what to do.  My father had signed my death warrant in my childhood."

"Why do you blame your father for your own wrong doings?" I asked. 

"When you see your father craving for his evening drinks everyday. When you see your father having a drink and doing Bhangra.  When you see your father getting clicked with a glass of liquor and proudly displaying that photograph.  When you see your father being cheered for dancing with a glass of liquor on his head. When you see your father drinking on the death of his mother with the excuse that he cannot cry without a drink, you feel, as a child, that liquor is the ultimate panacea for everything. You want to grow up only to drink. And that is what my father inadvertently taught me. By the time I realised my mistake it was too late," said my cousin. 

"So you have done the same for your two sons?" I asked. 

Before he could answer his wife interjected, "Fortunately or unfortunately our sons have faced so much public humiliation because of him being found in an inebriated state at all sorts of places, that they have pledged not to touch liquor. Last month he was pulled out of the gutter."

I remembered having pulled out a neighbour's son out of the drain during my college days. That boy was about five years older. I had seen his father distributing sweets when he secured a seat for veterinary sciences. I don't know what happened in that veterinary college. The boy was a liquor addict on passing out. In fact he could often be seen at the bus adda, begging people for money to buy liquor. 

The activist in me wanted to stage a dharna against the Govt. But then I realised that the Govt will always be more concerned about the revenue generated by the sale of liquor. Even if we get some leader with some scruples, he will ban liquor. But that will lead to smuggling. And another illegal economy will start functioning. As it is we have seen that addiction is used to subjugate another set of population. For example the foreigners used it against red Indians in America. The foreigners used it against aborigines in Australia. The goras used in China and they had the opium war. 

It has also been seen that the  drugs find an easy acceptance with the people addicted to liquor. 

The movies and TV serials have no shame in showcasing  liquor drinking.

You all may be having much better ideas to deal with the menace but in my considered opinion  if we (drinker and non drinkers) stop glorifying liquor in front of the children, maybe, in the next thirty years we can eliminate the curse. 

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