The 'Expression' of a Bacardised Soul

These days there's one of those oh so important discussions on TV, and in the papers .... a bunch of Bangalore yuppies and their children are complaining, crying and shrieking that they cannot drink and dance in pubs .... I am not being facetious here ..... that's exactly their complaint! A few days ago, they wanted to be able to drink and dance all night. Poor guys.... how painful their situation must be....painful enough for them to get together, find the luminaries among them who share their view and thrust them on TV, make a few placards and hold them up after calling cable TV stations. Brings a tear to my eye and tugs the abyss of my soul like Mother Teresa's actions once did.

Here is my tuppence.

Bangalore has over 10M people, terribly poor infrastructure, rising crime rates and terrible zoning violations.

Most establishments that serve booze and a good time are located in residential areas, but what the hell, the residents better suck it up if the yuppies want to shake a leg after downing a few pints. So what if cars block driveways, right? The yuppie has to be parked close enough to the gate of the pub so he should be able to crawl into his 4WD SUV if he cant be up on his feet, right? Fair? Sure!

What of the numerous cases of drunken driving and resulting accidents ? Well, the passer by on the road had no business being there in the middle of the night, especially when the yuppies in their fast cars were burning rubber around that hairpin bend, right? Sure!

And last but not the least .... the big complaint on TV is that the yuppies claim that their "expressions" are being killed.

Ooooookkkkkkk just hold it there mister. I understand that drinking is a great accomplishment to most young people .... and I've never been able to fathom that but I respect it anyway... considering so many people tell me how proud they are of their ability to gulp something down, regardless of the roof on their heads or the position of good ole sun in the sky, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. They speak of being able to drink so lovingly, it brings tears to my eyes. It must be a brave and courageous act, not to mention socially adorning thing to do....you drink ..... you must be awesome! I get it! Also, driving like a maniac testing the limits of your car and your reflexes.... ok, your pathetic adrenaline gives you a high, and so yeah, you would benefit from that!!!I get that too.

But .... "expression" ... excuse me .... do these guys even know how to spell it? Whats expression? The stuff that you drank or ate over 4 hours regurgitated onto the floor 'cos your pathetic puny Indian frame couldn't hold it?

What's your expression? Some stupid Bollywood move that you learnt from another drunk driver Khan guy (Salman, was it?) who ran over a bunch of daily wage labourers in the middle of the night with his Hummer?

Oh no... this must mean something else that I don't understand .... let the camera pan onto the people crying out loud ... Prasad Bidappa .... the model maker who is accused of pretty much everything, and was more recently detained for possession of drugs in Dubai ... or his son who was too drunk to tell a police constable from a stray dog and kicked out anyway, only to spend the next few weeks in prison going over his bacardi stained memories. Or Girish Karnad, who is the most overrated literateur I have ever come across... who perpetually has the expression of having a laxmi pataki (one of those firecrackers) stuffed up his bum, which might go off if he lost his gravitas.

Give me a break!!!

My point here is... drink by all means... Im sure you could use it .... you probably can't do much with your time anyway ... hell, who can anyway?... but for heavens sake do it in your home. Better still dig a nice square hole, put on one of those shiny disco balls, call your friends over and do your awful Bollywood shit till you fall on your rear-end ... at least someone who walks by will smell you in your urine in the ditch and call an ambulance or a priest to send you upstairs. With all that alcohol in your blood, you wont even need too many logs of wood.... save the forest, I say.... global warming and all that.


So have your party ... in fact do it everyday, or even twice a day for all I care....But for heavens sake don't demand to drive all the way across town to a residential area of law abiding citizens and say that your "expression" will only come forth in the region of those exact co-ordinates.


Once more....Bangalore has over 10M people, terribly poor infrastructure, rising crime rates and terrible zoning violations ... forget about my opinion. Apply statistics .... take a bloomin' normal distribution and apply it to the revelling population... most of the population to be specific (95%) of it is going to be drunk and from there on, just read the papers or stay up past midnight and listen to the revs on the road. ... If people are going somplace to get drunk (dancing doesn't exactly sober you or make you more acute), they are going to lose control. Put 4 wheels under them and do the math. Cars zooming past in the middle of the night and landing up in gutters is not new. These are not law abiding, responsible sip a few drinks, smell the night air kind of angels.


All this laissez faire of society allowing people to feel drunk anywhere they want is great where you can enforce the law, catch the drunk senseless yuppie and throw him in jail until he wakes up. Which is what the Western world does pretty well. And therefore, people are at least conscious of the risks of consequences. One drunk driving violation, and it will come up in your next job interview, forcing you to flip burgers for a lot longer than you bargained for. But in a country like ours, creaking under all its other problems, not least of them law enforcement, dont you dare tell me that the biggest scorpion tail stuck in your throat is that you cant drink and dance beyond midnight in Bangalore.

For once, I salute the Police Commissioner who simply said that in the bigger picture, these problems are just not important enough, and that he's fine with shutting these jackasses down.


Tally ho!
or should I say Cheers!!!