Drinking past midnight

A few months back, going by the heated discussions and passionate outpourings appearing continuously in the public domain for a few days, one would have thought Bangalore stood in the cusp of something genuinely historic and path-breaking! An uninformed outsider, sniffing around the city for a few days, might have mistaken the pervading hoopla for some kind of a precursor to pioneering societal reforms in Indian cities. Like an all enveloping and seriously enforceable ban on spitting and urinating in public, jaywalking on roads, eve-teasing and encroachment of public spaces by street vendors - all at one go.  Something which no self respecting government in India would ever dream of implementing because that would have been immensely and directly helpful to the general populace and would therefore be against any government's mandate! Moreover, that would have gone against the grain of our character!

Social media was typically agog with exuberant and high-decibel expectations - of course, this author must confess that was based on hearsay, since he has chosen to remain ignorant of and alien to their workings.  Prime-time TV news correspondents aired reports from congested pubs and resto-bars (this was also only hearsay because one could not see much in the trendy and fashionable darkness inside those places of entertainment) to ensure that the viewers understood the seriousness of the issue at hand and how critical it was for the reputation of Bangalore as a premier city in India, to do the right thing, in the opinion of the effervescent youngsters! Even my dear wife, who seldom has any time for minor shenanigans, tried to remain awake for a week till about 10 pm in the hope that a decision would be announced and she would not miss the historic high!  Actually, she even got up on a couple of nights to wake me up (very considerate of her) to ask whether the decision had come, since I was still wide awake when she was slowly dissolving into her sleep.  Even before the-rudely-awakened-I could part my sleepy lips to provide the monosyllabic negative response, she had slid swiftly back to deep slumber, leaving the-fully-awake-me to wonder about the vicissitudes of life for the next four sleepless hours.

So, what was the bestirred youth clamouring about?  Well, you see, the city police officials (looks like some of them can be sensible if they so desire, god bless them) had stoically refused to relent against several earlier assaults mounted by the service providers (bars etc) and the consumers (the tipplers) to keep their routine confluence (of course at the bars etc) open till past midnight as against the current closing time of 11 pm.  The primary provocation for the demand was the highly injured pride of the tipplers who felt slighted by visitors from other cities and countries deriding seemingly progressive Bangalore for its archaic drinking deadline. Bangalore tipplers bristled that local authorities were conspiring to prevent the city from occupying its rightful place of pride in the drinking pantheon and from tippling  themselves more witless for a lot longer in the night.  The bar owners justifiably felt inhibited from plying their profitable trade for a few more hours legitimately, when drinkers - who really mattered - were willing, but interfering intermediaries were playing truant.  Those managing the government's treasury were also inclined to go along because extension of time would augment tax revenues for the government, which in turn meant more money to siphon off,  for the corrupt ministers.

What was the hitch, you ask, when such diverse sections of the society were going to benefit from a simple decision?  Primarily, some senior police officials felt that drunken driving and otherwise tipsy behaviour in public, which was already rampant, would get seriously out of hand.  They were throwing hard spanners into the machinery because they did not want to literally lose sleep and pile more agonising late-night work on themselves.  So, we had the tipplers with bruised pride on the one hand and some sensible and anxious police officials on the other, arraigned against each other on this earth-shaking issue of humungous importance to the city of Bangalore and the chief minister himself was apparently going to be the final arbiter.

Now, as is this scribe's wont, it is time for a disclosure - I am a teetotaler but have no prejudice against any drink or for that matter, any tippler - that is so long as the latter does not disgorge his entrails anywhere close-by.  Actually, I have spent immensely enjoyable evenings,  listening to the entertaining but sometimes damaging ramblings and rants of the beyond-the-pale-sloshed among friends.  Simply because I was probably the only one staying marginally sober on tonic water!  Even as a neutral individual, the no-holds-barred and belligerent enthusiasm of Bangalore tipplers to redeem the city's reputation as a drinker's paradise made me cringe for various reasons.  (1) Didn't these guys have anything more concrete to do?  Among all the ills of the society Bangalore was a witness to, the intelligent and socially active youth could not find a more meaningful issue to fight the authorities?   (2) How critical could drinking from 11 pm to 1 am in a bar be to any reasonable person's happiness?  If one did that between say, 8 and 11 pm, that was not adequate?  Couldn't later drinking be confined to private homes and party halls?  (3) How did youngsters who had fun in these bars till the revised closing time, that is 1 am, get to work the next morning and in what shape?  If this became habitual, how did it affect their software programming or other computing work at Google or Amex or wherever?  (4) If police data is projecting an increase of 40%, post extension,  in the number of cases of drunk driving and drunken behaviour in public places, isn't that good enough reason to maintain status quo?  Didn't the tipplers have any compunction?? (5) While people with suicidal tendencies may drink and kill themselves in accidents, should innocent by-standers become sacrificial goats in the altar of Bangalore regaining its drinking glory?  Had the drinkers become so soul-less that they wanted to look askance at this fact?

Youngsters obviously reacted negatively to the above questions.  Their take was that just because a handful of people have problem post-drinking, others should not be penalised - imagine, they thought the society was penalising them by sticking to an earlier deadline!  When they were told that law worked exactly that way in all aspects and it did not wait for the entire population to start indulging in crimes before making/enforcing the law, they were probably far gone into drunken stupor not to comprehend.  When asked why, if at all the extension was necessary, couldn't the deadline be stretched only for weekends, they snapped out of their reverie and logically explained that people worked on different schedules and there was no common week-end as such in the modern world!  There was an under-the-breath-muttered-response, more like a muffled expletive, when it was pointed out that daily people under the influence of drink were hurting and/or killing themselves and others.

What did the government do?  Come on, don't be so ingenuous!!  Obviously it extended the deadline, consequences be damned!  Ministers and mandarins did their job and promptly retired to their sleep, asking police to be more vigilant for a longer period late into the night to uphold law and order!!  The already over-worked police force had no choice at all and are sleep-walking through the extended hours of the revelry. Indeed, police has taken punitive action by cancelling the licences of riders/drivers under the influence of alcohol forthwith.  Whether the loss of licence and the possible temporary loss of the vehicle are punishment enough to change the way people think, is a moot point.  Doubtful, because the thought of losing one's life in an accident had not infused any good sense earlier.  It seems there is a specially designated late shift for the police called the `drink shift' - something similar to the graveyard shift, for the most obvious reasons - and the race is on amongst the police to be the top suspender/canceller of driving licences.  The poor souls have to keep themselves entertained during their nocturnal duty hours.

In the meantime, one hopes that the tipplers find the extra two hours' drinking very stimulating and rewarding and that they do not cause any bodily harm to anyone around except themselves, if at all!