Rhyme and Reflection

“I can feel my head spinning .. I’m going to fall down“

That was my mind churning when I stumbled out of the dingy bar into the open air .. the sun shining directly on my face.

I had a pint of beer for the first time in my life .. at the age of 22 .. bizarre thoughts run though my head .. mainly based on the countless movies that I had seen in my life ..

Nothing happened .. I walked straight .. and in few minutes I was back at work .. working on a presentation that was due ..

I love drinking alcohol .. maybe a tad too much .. I can drink alcohol - any day, any kind, any type, any amount .. did not matter ..

It was never like this. I had my first drink at a late age .. I had just finished college and was working a temporary job. A few friends met for lunch and we shared a pint of beer .. I drank slowly .. very slowly .. wanting to savor the moment forever but also unsure of the impact of drinking .. But nothing happened. I stood erect .. and went back to work.

The Habit

slowly the habit to gulp down a peg or two became a routine .. the “bar” in bombay was a dingy, dimly lit crowded place where people huddled and strangers sat next to each other to have a drink or two yet keeping the facade of privacy intact .. no one dared to look at the neighbor in the eyes for fear of being caught and outed in the community .. such was the shame with drinking .. so people drank surreptitiously ..

the music in the bar played loud and the atmosphere was always tense .. men served alcohol and were often rude .. the people came from all walks of life letting to drown the sorrow over a chilled beer .. the only place where you sat next to someone irrespective of riches, origin or education ..

eventually I picked up courage to have a beer at a family dinner .. even this exercise was surreptitiously done .. the men reaching the restaurant few minutes early and drinking before the women and children joined .. I was constantly reprimanded by my mom for “bringing shame” to the family when she found that I drank alcohol ..

He walked in a straight line
Although others saw him wobble along
In his mind, he spoke flawless theories
Which were disjointed words to the people around

an excerpt from the poem "the drunkard", Sep 2010

University Life

Few years later, I was at a university in USA. Friday became the new drinking day .. pack of 6 beers and a badly made dinner became the staple .. the alcohol provided a minor respite in the dark drudging days as a graduate student who had no money or friends and studying in a foreign place ..

some of these evenings resulted in shocking incidents which now looks puerile .. one time, three of us fought to hug the only girl in a wild Friday party irrespective of the fact that the girl was with some one else .. the other time, it was taking the anger at a professor by peeing on his office door in the middle of the night after a drunken bout .. yet another time , it was simply a drinking “hall crawl” from one room to another in the college dorm outside the campus with one guy stationing himself in a girls room asking for sex because it seemed ok to say so when drunk ..

New Years Eve

life took its toll and moved forward with many such innocuous but childish events .. new year’s eve 1997 added another awkward feather in this adventure. Dhruv and I signed up for a paid event for a new years eve’s night. We decided that Dhruv was going to be the “sober” one while I could indulge in drinking as the place offered an alcohol fountain aka unlimited alcohol .. so we partied until 2 am when with a thud, a guy was thrown out from the bar for misbehaving .. and it turned out to be none other than Dhruv .. drunk, incoherent and totally wasted .. now, as a good friend I drove him to his place at one end of the town .. on reaching there, we found Dhruv had lost his apartment keys and had no clue as he was not in his element .. I left him outside his apartment in the cold weather and then drove back another 40 miles to the other end of the city where I lived .. the next thing I remembered was waking up 15 hours later .. till today, I have no clue on how I drove Dhruv and myself all over the town with that much alcohol within me .. all done with no visible harm to anyone.

Drinking Socially

then there were other friends who fancied “video” taping me and others drunk and being incoherent .. weird that someone tapes these incidents and even weirder that I continued to fall to these scams ..

Work

drinking socially at work also has gone against me at times .. I have always known that I cannot afford to be hungry when going on my drinking bout yet I continued to play this fools game and gulp more than necessary when empty in the stomach .. one such evening, Jennifer and I ended up drunk at our boss’ party .. although we walked out in our elements, Jennifer whispered to me that she left her ‘bra’ in a closet in the bosses house .. I could not help laughing while thinking maybe it was an “invitation”. Shortly I saw her trek back to the bosses house while I “ubered” myself back home. .. to plunk on my cozy bed ..

Reasoning

At times I reasoned, I was drinking to find myself .. the lost soul .. I felt that a person hidden within me would be released only with drinking .. he would pop out from within me .. and be free .. he did .. but I didn’t realize that he would go back once I became sober ..

Many are drunk with money
Fame, greed and power are also part of this business funny
In a little corner of this world, I celebrate epiphany
Intoxicated and wobbling, unknown singing my symphony

• Nov 2022

Corona virus

The virus disrupted all our lives .. leaving time and money on hand .. time that very few used to perfection .. others like me used the money to experiment with drinking alcohol .. a few sips a day .. a big drink on a weekend .. until the difference between weekend and weekday, day and night, morning and evening disappeared and alcohol consumed my life .. it felt good .. it felt great .. it was alcohol every moment ..

What Next?

Live after virus is returning to normalcy but habits seldom do ..

I stumble into the living room while reaching out to the bottle of 18 old whiskey .. smiling and promising to stop drinking from tomorrow ..

© 2025 Subu Sangameswar. All original content. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse or reproduce any part of this work, please contact the author.