The Forbidden Area
By: K S S Pillai
Though it is well-known that the consumption of alcohol is injurious to health, the bars and shops selling it are always crowded.
In a lighter vein, it is said that more truth comes out in bars than in courts of law, where one swears by holy books. Living in the dry state of Gujarat, I don’t get any chance to tell the truth in bars.
Despite pressure, various state governments have stated that there is no question of removing prohibition from the state where the Father of the Nation was born.
Nobody is surprised when there is vehement opposition to the proposal to merge the neighbouring union territories of Daman and Diu, the watering holes of the worshippers of Bacchus of the state. Whenever people want to drink away from the prying eyes of the police, they go to these places.
My native state of Kerala never advocated prohibition, as a great part of the revenue came from the sale of lottery tickets and outlets of the Kerala State Beverages Corporation, which sold alcoholic drinks at fixed rates.
When I was a child, there used to be toddy, the fermented intoxicating liquor from coconut trees, sold along with tasty dishes in toddy shops in all villages. Those who considered going to those shops a stigma used to cover their heads with a towel to avoid recognition.
Some did not bother about people knowing that they were regular customers of toddy shops. There was one Raman Nair, an elderly widower, who ran a teashop with his sons. He would visit the toddy shop every night and drink, though it was believed that the shop mixed toddy with some other material to make it quickly intoxicating.
Everybody knew about his staggering through the narrow road to his shop when they heard him sing old filmy songs loudly. He would remove his dhoti and tie it around his head. There was the house of one Purushothaman Pillai, a strict school teacher, on the way. When Raman Nair approached the road near Pillai’s house, he would stop singing, tie the dhoti around the normal place, and resume his songs only when the house was far behind.
The Kerala government used to auction arrack shops also in every village. They sold pure alcohol in bottles of 100 ml onwards. The customer had to drink at the shop or carry the bottles home, as there was no place to sit and drink. One such shop was in the field in front of my house.
A pleasant consequence was that I could meet most of my past classmates there. Some would come to the shop several times and purchase small bottles. Some habitual drinkers would start coming to the shop early in the morning and return frustrated when they found the shop shut.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, all were advised to keep their distance from one another while standing in queues. Though the lines were long in the evenings, the people were peaceful.
Even daily wage earners spent a major portion of their wages on drinks. One cartoon showed a man standing in a queue, telephoning his wife that it would be early morning when he reached home, as he had to maintain the distance, and the outlet was far away.
Some people manage to hoodwink the authorities and celebrate festivities with alcoholic drinks even in dry states. Vast farmhouses are convenient for such parties. Sometimes the police raid such places, and photographs of the arrested men and women appear in the newspapers the next day.
On some days, the police will be extra vigilant about checking vehicles coming from wet areas. It is also common to find the excise people destroying thousands of bottles of liquor captured in the state. Toll plazas are one of the favourite checkpoints for vehicles carrying alcohol.
The menace of drugs has increased now, as they are compact and easy to hide and carry. The users get intoxicated quickly compared to alcohol. Many air and bus passengers have been apprehended with drugs. The evil has spread even to colleges, from where many students have been arrested for possessing or trading drugs.
It seems prudent for all dry states to exempt some drinks with less alcohol from prohibition and collect the revenue.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in several national and international publications)
