Our First Beer!
It
was forty years ago, when we were in our Seventh Class, a mate of mine and I, both aged twelve years,
went to our district headquarters, Nellore (in Andhra Pradesh, India - on NH
5), which was 58 Kilometers away, south of my hometown, Kavali, on the
Calcutta-Madras Grand Trunk Road (GTC) – to have our first Beer. Indeed, we both were donning neatly pressed,
terry-cotton pants with likewise formal shirts duly tucked-in, for the occasion
in place of the usual, rarely pressed cotton knickers, slacks / t-shirts and we
wished we also had at least a pencil mustache each like, our more seniors of
the school began to display. The beer, I
knew to be something like Whiskey, Brandi, et al. that we used to get to see in
the cinemas drunk by all the villains, jilted heroes and comedians, in certain
scenes. My more knowledgeable pal
assured me that it would be the gentlest version of all the spirits, which was
not even categorized under hard drinks and so we planned a secret trip, on that
mission.
________
The Travel:
On
a Sunday according a previous evening’s plan, we met at the RTC bus-stand and
boarded the bus, with a hundred-rupee note in his pocket and some jingling
change in mine. It was the 1st time ever
for both of us, moving alone, independently and without any parental
supervision. But, that one-and-a-quarter hour journey seemed to me just of a
5-minute One, on account of my anticipation, I reckon. We sized-up the whole bus to check whether
there were not anyone from our home-place that we could recognize or vice-versa
and after satisfying ourselves that there were none, we relaxed with a sigh of
relief that we could avoid any grilling by the prying elders. There were, by and large, farmers from the
nearby villages returning homes after getting their paddy dehusked, their
motors / pumps repaired and the like and the vendors of all varieties – fruits,
vegetables, sea-food and so forth – debating, severally, aloud some issues of
their importance, which spectacle couldn’t hold my attention for long. Nor the expansive luring & luscious
greenery on both the sides of the high-way, intervening villages with the
spirited rural setting – the people in the traditional costumes, both the kids
with bare bottoms playing and country-roosters chasing hens, running
helter-skelter – unmindful of the traffic, mothers holding their thumb-sucking
infants – yelling at their kids to stay away from the highway, ruminating
cattle being huddled by their hollering herdsmen and bullock carts – loaded
with hay, dry sticks, un-processed Paddy, Jowar, Bajra along with Tobacco,
Chillies, Groundnuts, Sugar Cane and so on – blocking the road everywhere. All along the road, we could also see the
village folk, women and men carrying head-loads of grass, fire wood, freshly
caught fish marching, swinging their behinds.
Along the highway, on our right, from afar, we could see goods,
passenger and, once in a while, express trains chugging off, mostly drawn by
steam & diesel engines, while we could also see the electrical traction
work, under way, along the railway track. On the way, we crossed, twice the
railway track – one at Alluru Road and the other at Kovur, during which stretch
we travel on the right side of the track.
The road at each village was secured, on either side, by typically, the
thatched red-mud hutments, painted with thick dung coating and some white
washed, stone or brick walled, mostly un-plastered houses, with clay-tiled
roofs and a very few concrete ones, crudely plastered. All the houses are full of agricultural implements, discarded
cart-wheels, tractor tyres, haystacks, manure-pits, grain-silos, buffaloes,
goats, fowls, while walls dotted with round dung-cakes and the home fronts with
lime-powder line-drawings (like rangolis, without any colors); not to speak of
a very small, but crowded kirana-shops & tiny tea-stalls, land marked by
oversized iron-mongers’ sheds here and there, By the way, there was also
housing behind the road in case of larger villages and some brick making units
along the highway. The main transport
within the villages was tractors, bullock carts, bicycles &
Enfield-Bullets. Of course there was
this pleasant sea-breeze as on the Eastern side of the highway, 7 to 20
kilometers was the Bay-of-Bengal.
________
The Wonder-Town:
Bingo:
we were in Nellore in no time, awe-struck with that mega-town’s majesty which
was hitherto a mammoth town, I have ever
seen, having a very gigantic RTC bus-station, far wider roads with dividers in
the midst of them, traffic junctions with circular gardens duly fenced with
iron grills, statues amidst them and the ubiquitous cops controlling the
traffic, standing on high pedestals covered with towering shelters, and
whopping shops, with neon boards, on all sides, with colorful awnings and huge
hoardings along the heavily crowded roads, unlike what we used to see in my little
town.
We
roamed from the bus-station along the GTC, for about a kilometer and a half,
which was also the arterial main road of this massive town like it was for my
own, to find our long-cherished beer, with little success. After exercising our legs enough, we finally,
thought of taking the assistance of a local guide. Accordingly, we located a friendly looking
rickshaw-puller (tricycle man), whom we hired for the Day, for five rupees. Having struck a bargain that he would take us
to a beer-shop and in the evening drop us back at the main bus-station, we
boarded our conveyance. He took us to a
few wine-shops on the main road and the connecting roads but we haven’t seen
anybody drinking beer, there. We thought
that it was too early since it was barely 11 O’ clock in the morning and
regretted having come all the way, in the wrong time. A little later, our guide had showed us a few
wine-shops with small, attached drinking-rooms, where there were some drinkers,
seated on the benches, talking hoarsely, guzzling their spirits and we were
reluctant to have the beer at such ugly spots.
As our guide appreciated our delicacy, he suggested that he could take
us to the one-and-only licensed-bar of the town except, that it could be very
expensive and my mate motioned to him to take us there immediately, with a kind
of imperious wave of hand that you could expect from a brash royal prince.
The
‘XYZ Bar & Restaurant’ proved to be on the 1st floor of a shopping complex
in one of the busy roads, parallel and far away from the main road. After leaving our guide to stay put at his
place till we were back, we picked up a king-sized cigarette packet and an
expensive looking match-box with wax coated, rolled paper sticks in it, at the
killi-dubba (pan-dibba) next to the concrete stair case of the bar, we went up
to be received by a ‘Maharaja’ (with all his attire including, Silk Sherwani,
Zari Kurtha, Turban, a glittering Sheathed Sword hung to his side and a very
prominent Handlebar mustache, the kind, again, we get to see on the shady
characters of movies or on military men) at the entrance and we got so taken
aback by the apparition that we were about to bolt back through the same
stair-case, we just came up. But we were
stopped by the very courteous & reassuring voice of the “Maharaja’, bowing
and begging us to enter, while opening that large, ornate, mahogany door of the
bar, crisply. In a trance, we both
obeyed his command and immediately on our entry, he closed the door swiftly
behind us, without any noise.
________
Enter the Dungeon:
Lo,
suddenly, we were in a very dark-hall and as we stood there for a few moments
(it looked to me like it were an eternity) in absolute silence, there
materialized another imposing personality except he was in his well-starched,
milk-white uniform with blue shoulder badges mounted with brass ornamental
plates, a vest studded with coin-sized brass buttons, a blue belt with palm
sized buckle and a white, pea cap, encircled with a blue strip highlighted with
an insignia, a pair of shining, black shoes and a bushy, twirling mustache who
looked like a naval official. Without
asking us any questions, he hurriedly ushered us into one of the paneled cabins
located on the right-side of the spacious hall, we just entered. He bowed and waved us to be seated on the
massive sofas placed on either side of the teapoy, thrust into our hands a
couple of heavy, plastic-bounded folders and left us stating that he would come
back, shortly. And that time around, we
were sure that he would return with his boss and that they were going to
interrogate us thoroughly, before they let us off or handing us over to the
police and we further thought that what was given to us was their standard
‘questionnaire’, for infantile intruders of their men-alone club.
After
a lot of deliberations on making our flight unnoticed, we were convinced that
we could not do so without getting caught, seeing that from under the
half-doors of the prison cell, we could perceive that many other naval
officials shuffling from that end to the other of the ample hall, outside. Having brought us around that there was no
getaway; we started doing the next best thing that was to
‘know-your-hostile-territory’. Thus, we
started inspecting the cell and noted that it had a low, knee-level but stout,
elaborately adorned teak teapoy, sandwiched between the two huge, sponge sofas
covered with thick velvety cloth, on which we were seated and at the four
corners, there were four potted plants of non-descript nature, mounted on an
equal number of elevated, intricately carved, teak stands. The single ventilation the cell had was the
entrance with the two-way, half doors.
We also, slowly conceived that it was not an absolute ‘pin-drop-silence’
in which we were in but there was some whispering, back-ground music that was
piped into the cell, through some mysterious means and that it was also not
pitch dark we were in but there was some type of dimmed-lighting.
________
The Tall Order:
After
a while our detaining officer returned with a couple of glasses with water in
them, placed the same on the teapoy and politely asked whether we were ready to
place our order, which rapidly lessoned the speed of our racing hearts and
pulsating nerves. On exchanging quick
glances, we took a deep breath and chirped that we were not yet ready, for
that, to which he bowed out stating that we could press the button of the
calling-bell on the switch-board located next to the entrance, when we were
ready. And we started scrutinizing the
contents of the booklet in the hands and realized that it’s front-page was
printed in gold with the logo of the bar above, ‘Menu’ in the middle and the
address with phone numbers of the bar below and inside pages contain lists of
liquors, cool-drinks and some cold & hot snacks.
On
studying the so many items with foreign-sounding names, initially, we both
considered that we better order some snacks with cool-drinks, pay-up the bill
and get out as fast as possible. Then on
second thoughts, we both resolved that we ventured there with an elaborate
scheming to have our first beer and beer was what we would have, come what
may! After a long study, my mate has
made up his mind on what to order and without any further delay, I pressed the
button and there appeared the butler, instantly, like a Jinn. My mate had ordered for two Cold-Beers (a
great deal later, I came to know that even poor beers, do, have brand-names
like Colgate, Binaca, etc. and grades like strong, medium & mild) and as my
mate was being a vegetarian wouldn’t take chicken, I ordered for my all-time
favorite fried pea-nuts.
In about thirty minutes, the butler emerged with
a couple of tall, dark brown bottles, dripping with droplets of chilled
water, two bulky jug-like glasses with
handles, washed afresh and a plate-full of fried peanuts, placed all of them on
the teapoy, before us. Then our
Man-Friday de-capped both the bottles with the help of an opener and with a
flourish (like the famous Jeeves would have) to fill our two glasses to the
brim with the bubbling beer, enquired whether we need anything else and after
our confirming negative he shuffled out, winking at us.
________
The Long Binge:
On
finding ourselves alone, to match our moods to the moment, we each lit our 1st.
cigarettes to, immediately, realize that
inhaling the smoke suffocate us to no end and after coughing for a few a minutes, we stopped puffing but held them to
burn between the fingers, stylishly and smiling sheepishly. We changed our seating postures a few times,
twiddled our thumbs for a while, took
deep breaths, several times and finally lifted our mugs, decisively,
wished each other cheers to have the first gulp of our dream-beer just to
understand that it was no ‘badam-kheer’ (A milk shake of Almonds) and that it
tasted like hell. Our immediate urge was
to spit it out but on finding that there was no ideal place to do so, we
slowly, with contorted faces started swallowing the bitter medicine,
drop-by-drop. At that instance itself,
we decided that enough was enough and that we should wrap-up our little
escapade, the soonest. Then like a tonne
of bricks hitting the heads, we realized that the butler would notice our
misadventure and others too would join him to have fun at our expense, the
second we leave the cell. No…No way
could we have allowed such an ignominy to happen to our manliness! And the rest of the time there, for about an
hour and half, we spent all our creativity to devise a fool-proof plan to make
the vanishing trick of the beer, which was over 95% of the original
supply. All our body-pours started
emitting hot fumes and our stomachs were burning to no end and we started
dousing the fire in our bellies with the not anymore cold water and the fried
pea-nuts. As we found no drain outlet anywhere
on the floor, we meditated very deeply and decided to empty the rest of the
beer into the plant-pots, while hoping the earth in them would absorb the beer,
in no time. Once again our friend
stepped in to check whether we wanted anything else to which we both jointly
chorused that we don’t want anything further and that we would call him when we
wanted the bill.
And
slowly we started to pour the leftover beer into the plant-pots and finally we
were completely satisfied that we were free of that unpalatable liquid. But noooh! by the time we sat on the sofas to
relax, we realized, to our utter dismay, that the cell had started reeking of
the strong beer stench and we both jerked up to examine our respective
pot-pairs and found that they were no clay pots nor what were inside were the natural
plants, but the gun metal pots decorated with artificial plants without any
earthen support. Then we began to worry
what to do about it and arrived at a consensus that it was too late to do
anything about it. After some dilly
dallying, we took courage to call the butler for the bill. He entered sniffing and rolling his eyes to
ascertain the cause of the stink and looking at us dubiously. We, with all the inscrutable faces we could
muster, demanded the bill, disallowing him to look around for any tell-tales of
our mischief.
________
Escape to the Freedom!
At
last, after fifteen minutes, the butler returned with a small platter of saunf
(Aniseed), a few tooth-picks and the long awaited release-order of ours. My mate searched deep into an inner pocket of
his pants and produced a crisp hundred rupee note and placed it in the
platter. In the meanwhile, the butler
had been sniffing and searching for the apparent cause for the stink in the
cabin, by which time I started doubting that the unpleasant odor might have
also started escaping into the immense hall, outside. And after another Fifteen minutes he returned
and placed the bill and some notes and coins, looking at us all the while,
suspiciously. My mate had picked up
eighty rupees in notes leaving coins, as tip and gestured me to get going and
we trotted out of the place as if we were being chased by a pack of mad dogs.
As
soon as we came down onto the road, our guide smiled benignly and motioned us
to sit and we boarded our chariot, to be dropped at the bus-station. After paying him off with the earlier agreed
fare and an additional two rupees by way of ‘baksheesh’ we waved him goodbye
and rushed into the bus-station. We
entered the royal place, stopped at the cool-drinks’ shop to catch some air and
for the first time we realized how thirsty we were and ordered for two cold
nimbu-sodas (lime-sodas). Not satisfied
with one each, we repeated the order and gulped one more each of the cold
beverage and waited for the bus, back to our place
As
we were waiting there for the bus, which was expected to come within another
half-an-hour, it dawned on me that my head was reeling, funnily with some
ringing sounds in the ears and quite a few Eastman colored stars revolving
before my eyes. I checked with my mate
who confirmed that he too was having the same experience and that it was called
a ‘kick’! Finally the bus came and we
toddled into it grabbing a couple of seats and collapsed into them. After what looked to be a very long haul of a
few hours, in spite of the boisterous fellow-passengers and the captivating
rural interludes on the way back too, I described previously, we landed at our
town’s bus-stand by the dusk, minus the delirium. A good deal later when I became an adult, I
used to wonder how we could get a ‘full kick’ with less than a few table-spoons
of beer, never mind the brand or whether it was strong, medium or mild, and I
am blank to this date, to those details.
________
NOTE TO THE READER:
This
is my first story and this will become the leader of
similar
such personal and humorous experiences
of
mine in due course.
If
you like it, kindly spread about it within your circles and if you feel so, I
welcome a line or two from you, which could improve my future works at
prmadhura@yahoo.com. If you do not
approve any part of this work, please feel free to let me know, so that I can
keep in mind of your objections in my future edition / the print edition of
this and other works.
