My experience with drunken guys is that very few are sober when they are punch drunk.

I have a friend, who when fully drunk looks for an elevated place and proclaim “I am the editor of the New York Times.” Sadly, he has chosen the corporate world to journalism.

There is another friend who will talk only in English when his intoxication peaks. There are many humorous incidents involving guys who get drunk and lose their sense.

There was a friend working in a factory who got drunk before peforming Ayudha Pooja. Fully drunk, he tried to crush lemon between the chain and teeth of a machine only to have his finger crushed. Cricket umpire Billy Bowden reminds me of him because after the mishap he began to walk with his right index finger like a seven. And we call him “weather-proof man” since from a distance it will look like he is carrying an umbrella.

I am also reminded about two guys who we encountered during our childhood. One was from a very religious family and the other was usually quiet. They were seldom seen together.

But when both guys got married, we saw them going together for a drink from the illicit liquor vendor at our place. We would feel threatened on seeing them coming from the vendor’s place, a pit, because if we were playing football they will insist on kicking it far out of the ground. They wouldn’t bother us if we played cricket since they were bare foot and clad in lungi – something that could make us target their foot or thighs! But we failed to understand why they took to drinking after marriage. I have come across quite a few who loved the bottle over their wife or family.

Speaking of liquor and intoxication, we should know that money too is an intoxicant. Our people are never tired of going for more money. But howsoever bitter experience they go through, they behave like the drunken.

Otherwise, why should Saradha Chits scam break out? Our people have never learnt from their previous experience of Sanchaita, Ramesh Cars, Emu bird scheme, timber plantation scheme and other such ponzi schemes? Similar is our experience with politicians. Maybe, people abroad could be looking at us as ones always in drunken stupor.

(Post corrected for facts.)

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