Al Ngullie
Here’s a liver-blasting piece of news for all of you, people: medical researchers have recently concluded that alcohol is in fact very, very, very good for your health, if you don’t take it.
When I was a teenager, adolescence was not so much for hyperactive hormones and testosterone as living for high spirits. Bottled spirits, that is. Teenaged or not, a rag-tag bunch of buddies and I were a group of bottle-friendly youngsters downing buckets of everything that gave us hallucinogenic kicks in the head – from Zütho to Zuch-ü (Lotha’s equivalent to the Angami’s) to Rum and Whisky. But mind you, all you inexperienced youngsters out there – we drank responsibly –we took liquor only on special days. The only problem? Frankly, for my group special days happened to be every evening, 365 days in a year.
Oh what fun! After classes my buddies and I would hold a …er…council meeting where only the most pressing agenda would be selected. The only agenda always was either “let’s go get some drink” or if wallets happened to be on diet, “where do we find money to get drunk?” In the event we were fortunate to somehow scrape some few bucks (a 500ml cup of Zuch-ü cost Rs 5 then) we’d troop off to some seedy shed for some local brew. So finally, the Now-Let’s-Start-Speaking-In-Unknown-Tongues sessions would start.
After a few sincere sips of the heady brew, one of us would suddenly, out of nowhere or context, blabber out something strange about a strange something. There, before you know it, everyone’s got something to say. With the brew taking effect on the head, the group would then start uttering strange languages which at best sounded like an intermingle of Greek with medical vocabulary; at worse, a collection of polio-stricken English delivered in distinct Lotha vocals spoken with Bangladeshi passion and delivered in Class B grammar package. Now that’s super-Eeeks. That’s the problem with bottled spirits which induce you into uttering unknown tongues. One oftentimes, if not always, become too intellectual that the speaker don’t even understand what’s he’s talking about anyway. It can be safely assumed this is one reason that strange-language sessions often end in dislocated jaws and blackened eyes, not to mention the odd broken tooth.
Thank the Lord that I don’t speak in polio-stricken, havoc-happy tongues anymore by virtue that He has blessed me enough to exercise language in other ways rather than through the bottle. I feel sorry for some of my friends who have now lost their direction in life – careers wasted, personalities retarded and personal lives ruined. My only prayer for them is that God would use each of us in the way He deems best to effect a change in those who have lost their vision and direction.
And yes, that He would also use the Government and every societal entities to impact a change. For now anger can’t be helped that many of these entities have lost their directions too – in vision and affirmation. When we think of what could have been, should be and would have been done, cynicism, anger and sarcasm fills us. Alcohol and liquor remains banned in Nagaland so we take only whiskey, beer, rum and assorted IMFL. Three cheers to our government for walloping beer-heads with something so incongruous called ‘prohibition’ and then gorge on imported liquor at official gatherings; here’s to our local print media for stripping naked the government’s failure to implement the ban, and then drown in liquor at press parties and New Year celebrations. Here’s to those journalists that unflinchingly express support to welfare commitments, offer elaborate suggestions and then when the day is done, guzzle imported Whisky with government officials at official functions, clandestinely of course. Ah! Sarcasm is easy if you know hypocrisy is our latest mantra that neo-bourgeois Christianity gifted to middle class Nagaland!
However, since it is wrong to judge others, I’ll only back-bite. In the first place, it’s no secret that besides regular liquorheads, the government itself is contributing to some liquor smuggler’s income too – I have attended ‘official’ events where the dessert focus happened to be imported whisky. And no, no Cameras please! A colleague once narrated to the office several government functions he’d attended at Dimapur where at lunch almost all the state honchos in attendance held elegantly colored liquids which had peculiar effects on their grammar. When one official saw my colleague with a camera, the top-shot shooed him away with a mighty official wave of his hand.
Talking about state participation, let’s not be so parochial as to overlook police check gates. It’s no secret that every possible bit of contraband, including those omnipresent IMFL consignments, is proudly made known to the public via the poor overworked local press. Come to think of it they must be doing a mighty good job because we get press releases even for the “capture” of 5 capsules of Spasmo Proxyvon or a case of beer. Not that it shouldn’t be lauded but just that there are bigger fish out there and these personnel should be laying net for them. Butwaitaminuteandholdyourhorses! Let’s not overlook the fact that it’s also no secret that police personnel manning the check gates are also owners of bleary whisky eyes reinforced by a deadly punch of whisky breath. No, don’t you murmur ‘prohibition’ because the ban virtually omits check gates or drunken police personnel out of its purview, so assuming. The commuting public, particularly the commercial transports community has often leveled charges of drunken behavior against personnel high on bottled spirits. Come to think of it, theses are only a few instances of the whole duplicitous picture. Come to think of it, we the drinking public is rendering the ‘Prohibition’ ineffective.
And come to think of it, we are suddenly high and dry too. Now that’s an issue which has really left us with strange grammar.
