Hungama Hai Kyon Barpa: My personal story
Hungama Kyon hai barpa?
Part 2
Relationship With Alcohol: It ain’t simple
My Personal Story:
There was no alcohol at my home during early childhood. I must be about ten years old when my parents expanded their hospital in Khopoli and created a polyclinic for different specialists to come regularly from Mumbai or Pune to offer their services to the local people. My father had a dynamic personality and was a rather curious yet admirable combination of public service and personal ambition. I vividly remember the inauguration of this multi specialty clinic. He had roped in the then Health Minister of Maharashtra Mr. Leon DSouza to attend as the chief guest. Mr DSouza was accompanied by his wife. There were many distinguished doctors from Mumbai and Pune who came for this occasion. My ever hospitable father, who at the time was himself a teetotaler, served chilled beer to the honorable minister and his wife when he found out their preference. As the chief guests enjoyed their drinks with lunch my beaming father asked me to play my harmonium and sing along.
It was all good as long as my father wasn’t touching alcohol.
Sadly a few years later for the first time ever he brought home a bottle of whiskey.
And as the poet has phrased in the ghazal, hungama barpa! It created an uproar at home. My mother protested. We kids were stunned and absolutely disliked to see alcohol in his hands. But times never went back to the good old days of purity. Or purity as we had considered it until that point.
In my school we had friends from all religions. Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhists. For Christmas my catholic friend would invite me for the Christmas Eve mass in their church and next morning at their home to celebrate Christmas Day with her family. Her mom, besides the best cakes and other goodies, would make fine wine at home. They would insist that I taste it. I took a sip or two but never really relished the taste of alcohol. If my mother found out about it there would be hungama at home.
Another alcohol related memory from my Khopoli days was visits to the local brewery. Mohan Meakins had a brewery there and their general manager was a tenant in our building. He would take us kids occasionally to enjoy the food served at their club house and during those visits we got a tour inside the beer factory. The temperatures inside were freezing and huge containers with the finished products stood in a row in that large storage room waiting to be bottled and dispatched for distribution. These tanks had taps and the employees would let us sample the beer. I hated the taste so much that to this day the mention of beer makes me look the other way.
Fast forward to my mid twenties. I was married to a NRI and suddenly found myself in foreign land. My husband’s friends and their wives became my friends in Chicago and later in Los Angeles. Alcohol was not taboo at get togethers or special occasions. Although I never took a liking to beer or whiskey I developed a taste for cocktails, particularly margaritas. My husband would take a beer occasionally but with time he didn’t even want that. He didn’t like the way it made him feel.
Until 1996 we had never brought or served alcohol at home. That year in December we hosted a big party for our kids’ birthdays. I had cooked single handedly for 75 people. A dear friend said he would fix margaritas for the guests. I got all the ingredients needed for it. After the party not only was there lot of food leftover, there was also half a bottle of tequila and some Margarita mix!!
My husband had to stay in Bakersfield starting that September for his job and I was in Los Angeles with the kids, trying to finish my residency. One fateful weekend after that birthday party I was on call for the service of hematology. I could stay home unless called for a consult. I was in the kitchen and saw the tequila and got a brilliant idea to fix myself a margarita. What harm could it do ? Mind you, I had never before fixed a Margarita. Someone else had done it for me. I had no clue about proportions!
So here I go, my 31 year old self, fixing my first ever margarita. I poured the margarita mix, tequila, ice into the blender. Prepared the glass with a rim of salt and lime juice. Poured the blended cocktail into the cup and began to enjoy. It tasted awfully good. I was feeling proud of myself. But that feeling lasted for a very short time. I soon began to feel giddy headed and losing control. Fortunately I had enough judgment to know that I am getting incapacitated. If I get a call from the hospital I am not in a position to drive !! Luckily for me the junior resident on that service with me was a very close friend. I called him, told him what’s going on. He agreed he would go if called for a consult. He took away the stress from me that day. And luckily he too didn’t have to go that day.
I had been stupid. On duty, two kids at home, even though I had the backing of their nanny, I had consumed a drink in unsafe quantities, enough to be incapacitated. It could have big consequences. I was just lucky I had got away without much except a big hangover.
I had learnt a lesson of my lifetime!
I had learnt my limits.
I would never repeat what I had done that day.
Fast forward 13-15 years. It was time for the kids to leave home for college. They were 18 when each left home. Legal age in the country for alcohol is 21. But I was no fool to know how college life is. As I drove each one to their dorm for the first time I gave them a sermon about what I expect from them.
Number one, honesty. At no time I want to hear that they cheated in any way.
Number two, always keep communication open with us parents. Good or bad, I want to know.
Number three, drink alcohol if you want to, but in minimal quantities. Remember how much your parents drink.
Number four, drugs are out of question.
Number five, suicide is not an option. If the thought crosses your mind, I need to know right away.
Number six, college is not high school. You will not always get an A in every class. It is ok. Work diligently but don’t be hard on yourself.
Which mother would want to tell her kid, it is ok to drink alcohol? Especially before the legal age?
But I did.
Because I knew the realities of college life. If you tell them don’t do it, they may hide it from you and join friends in unlimited consumption. Instead, if they know mom supports it, they will pay heed to the caution that comes with the permission.
They never gave me a chance to regret until now.
When we go out together as a family we do enjoy wine or a glass of cocktail. But it never extends to a second drink. And my husband never has even the first one.
There is never a craving to have a drink. I may indulge at some gathering, another time I may not be interested. It may be weeks or months before I go get a drink. That’s how sporadic and infrequent is my contact with alcohol.
Even though alcohol learnt to behave in my presence it wasn’t so always with some people I knew.
It must be about ten years now. My daughter’s good friend from high school was returning home at night after dinner with friends and a drunk driver rammed into her car. She died at the spot. This exact location is less than 2 miles from my home. Every time I pass from here I am reminded of this beautiful young lady who was so full of life yet who never got to see her life blossom.I think of her widowed mother who could never get over the grief of losing her beautiful baby.
Just a few years after this tragedy my son called me up. He was shaken up to hear that a friend of his, who was the son of one of my colleagues, died in a motor vehicle accident in San Diego where he was attending college. Turns out he had been drinking heavily at a friend’s house and late night started to drive home. He got into the wrong ramp and had a head on collision with an oncoming car. An elderly woman driving the other car died in the collision. And so did this twenty something kid. His parents had adopted him from an orphanage in India. We had seen him since he was little. We used to adore him for his energy and special talent in dancing. A very kind kid with a great and unique sense of humor , my son had a special place in the heart for him. From orphanage to love and security in a physician’s family he had got a second chance in life. Alcohol snatched it away. It took a long time for my son to get over it. Even today, the picture of this happy kid dancing to Bhangra beats on stage during India’s Independence Day
Celebrations comes to mind when I think of him and right after that a picture of him driving on that fateful night !!
Not just friends of my kids, I know a couple of my own classmates whose life is in a downward spiral due to alcohol. And their denial stands in the way of getting help. We friends will endure guilt if there is no happy ending for them.
I never knew or thought that one day I would be sitting in the doctor’s chair focusing on getting patients off alcohol.
The purpose in sharing my story is because I am one of many who grew up in a household where alcohol was taboo, and changing times and society exposed me to a different set of values and customs. Alcohol suddenly was more accessible, acceptable, less likely to be scrutinized. There was physical and emotional vulnerability and every opportunity to become addicted to it. But something prevented that from happening. Not sure what it was. Whether some deeply ingrained values or genetics, may be the responsibility as a mother, may be the knowledge from my medical training, may be fear of God, may be my family’s and friends’ inclination or all of the above.
May be someone else with similar circumstances wasn’t as fortunate to dodge the habit. May be they will see that their story can have a better outcome than what appears right now. May be they will reach out for help. May be I can make a difference for someone.
Saree is a cotton double ikat from Pochampally. Double ikat is a more tedious process of weaving where both weft and warp yarn is pre-dyed with specific pattern. The motifs appear more well defined compared to single ikat where either warp or weft yarn is dyed. In this saree there is ikat in body, border and pallu. As if that wasn’t enough, I paired it with an ikat blouse also from Telangana.
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