GUNTHROAT

My tryst with beer started when I was in 11th. Life was busy with action shifting from one coaching centre to the other in search of tablets which would arm me to face entrance examination. At this point I got intrigued by this drink which was known for its bitter taste. A friend of mine invited me to his home to have a sip. It tasted the same way as I expected, very bitter. But it had a heat which gave profound sense of elation. The next thing I did was run to my physics tuition class. I remember myself seated in the back bench as a grown up among my class mates when they smelled the thick aroma of beer.

Then I got into my college and was a teetotaller throughout my first year except for two occasions. A place for drinking beer is as important as the place where we drink it. This is called ambience. The setting, the light, the waiter, the music, even the pickles have its unique impact on me. My first entry to a bar was initiated by my cousin in fort kochi. Ranjith and I went to fort kochi in an afternoon. When we reached near the Dutch cemetery we saw a film unit shooting a rain sequence. We also heard tamil being spoken by the crew members. We ran to the entrance of cemetery expecting to catch a glimpse of the rain song with a sari clad heroine dancing with an ugly hero. But we saw indrajit and prithviraj (at that time the worst rated actors) holding gun on some north Indian villain. The disillusionment prompted by that took us to a local bar, where I had my first drink in a bar. We still have doubts on whether that bar was a brothel, because we saw silhouettes of some women passing by in the top floor.

The next occasion was the night when the first company visited our college for placements. I didn’t make it through interview. I was shattered and went with Nipun to the famous bar in kalamassery. Interestingly we were a bit high when Nipun started lecturing me on the importance of cutting moustache when you are facing an interview. After making sure that I overcame the trauma, Nipun drove me back to college.

Those were the early days, then drinking became a routine (I don’t consider it as a case of moral depravity as seen by some virtuous teetotallers. History proves a testament to the fact that teetotallers have done more damage to world than drunkards. Examples are many). Beer gave me some of the memorable nights in my life. The night when Vinu hit the car to a post in the act of cleaning the glass while driving, when I got Ranees to show his true self (those who know him will understand) by calling him names, when I got drunk I and got myself into a giant wheel in shivarathri manappuram which stood on three cycle wheels (I swear I wouldn’t have got into that diabolical creation of human whims if I was sober) and cried “I don’t want to die before getting my first salary” (Interestingly that remains a dream and I did not get myself into that killer machine when I went to manappuram on this shivarathri, but Vishal being the devil he is took another friend of mine who cried out “I want to see her one more time before I die”) to name a few.

But when I look back it was not actually the drink called beer that gave me the high. It was actually the amazing people to whom I said cheers who made my day. My cousins with whom I had the best moments of my life in Goa (where poor Appu blacked out in bathroom with door locked), Varkala (where we knocked every shutter before finding a case of beer on a dry day) and my dear friends especially Nipun. Yes as the title says beer can get you laid even if you are super ugly, but it also gives you friends and moments that otherwise would have passed like the other mundane ones. So cheers to beer which has been helping people have fun since 1861.