Readers’ Voice: I drink, therefore I am

26 April 2008

There is an ancient Indian fable about a drunkard. The story goes that the man, in an inebriated state, made all the more intrepid by the influence of alcohol, impetuously demanded to make a purchase of the Raja’s royal mount. After a lot of persistence, the courtiers timidly reported the incident to their liege and the Raja is said to have commanded the prospective buyer to be given admission into the court the ensuing day.

The next morning, the man was summoned before the king’s presence to reiterate the proposed prospect of the previous day.

Alas poor man! Who in our daily common place mundane existence can be so brazen? What mortal is so dominantly pervasive enough to stand up to the conviction made under the fiendish influence of alcohol?

Such was the plight of our poor man. His bosom friend having ignominiously deserted him to his own design, to the onerous reply of making and answering to the Raja, what could the mahout do but beg for clemency.

“Your Majesty,” the mahout followed with supplication, “Verily there was someone indeed who stood by me to beseech your liege to make an entreaty to buy your mount. But somehow, the place and the circumstances having evaded me, the worthy friend of mine equivocated me by giving me a sound sleep here by the ditch and I have never an inkling of what ensued next save that he has left me in a quandary to make a reckoning for the bargain, I was so obsessed with . My liege, now without a broken shell of cow-fire to my name and not the wonted caprice of a friend who pledged me to this bargain, I incur your wrath and will submit and endure whatever mode of punishment you have in store for me.

I will forego the tedious particulars that will ensue next: Suffice it to say that the king, having formed a decided opinion of the man to be a simpleton in an inebriated state, had his gracious clemency and bade the man safely be conducted through the sentinel post.

The above aphorism may serve more of a housewives tale told upon the hearth, but since it so befits my immediate purpose; I shall venture it to stale a little.

In my daily rounds of carousing, I have seen and been with people who by nature are so germane and who have the selfsame
tendency so congenial with the protagonist of my humble story.

Scratch a Bhutanese and you will find bangchung, so said, someone I know: After all have the Bhutanese not been branded with the epithet for eating, drinking, and merry making? I’m inclined to believe that drinking takes the forefront occupation. Be it a birthday dinner, a luncheon, a perk or a promotion; nay, even on a sordid occasion of bereavement, isn’t the order of the day wine and the wassails?

Even in any regular haunt- and they are in preponderance – is it not a ubiquitous sight to see a gallant walk in histrionically with his (or somebody’s) S.U.V key in his left index finger and brandishing a Nu 25,000 high tech Nokia making deals over the latest Prado? While next to him (by all appearance a stranger hitherto) sits a Bhutanese Barbie smelling like the milliner. His august presence is immediately felt, his exotic brand supplied with the expedition of thought. Men are men and let it not be supposed a disparagement to my valuable readers that our worthy’s eyes are for once riveted at our Barbie. The eyes have it-a silent ensconce and the deal has begun.

The more drenched and soggy ones are the next: making amorous an approach with displays of bunches of thick banknotes; given to understand that the cash they carry around are superfluous, save for the intention of spending it on frivolities. Sometimes the gallant succeeds – most of the time his self-conceit is superadded with an inarticulate speeches.I have had the privilege of meeting the intellectuals to; the rhapsody makers. A conducive haunt in Paro appropriately called the nest is a haven where to listen to the worthies talking, would be to form an opinion about the validity of their studies. Hear them discourse on any paradox, they make a Gordian knot of it; they unloose as easy and familiar as their gho-dobtha.

I am by no means making calumnious innuendos to those who live by such steadfast immoral principles: Many a time,have I not thought my morning grog necessary for me so that I can keep a good opinion of myself, undisturbed by the facts? Was I not wont to say that I will resort to alcohol as long as there is a passage in my throat and “Drinking in Bhutan?” And let it not be supposed by the enemy of the system that I am writing this incongruous piece to abet you to the virtues of drinking. My fervent intention in writing this piece is to convey my heartfelt thanks for the many that have disillusioned me and decoyed me away from this vortex of deep pit of liberation.

All said and done, I profess that I’m no saint myself: like many before and after me, I have had my share of ignominy, despair, and frustration. In the face of all this, I have a saving faith that says I shall turn out to be a better and more considerate person.

Someone has aptly remarked that someone who lost his way shall find it: I am on the quest for the same and I believe sincerely that is the first step on the path to redemption.