Geetanjali Krishna: Dry days, but not for tipplers

PEOPLE LIKE THEM

Pradeep wasn't looking forward to his uncle Ram Lal's visit to Delhi. He was going to stay for a week starting from Republic Day, Ram Lal had said. Pradeep had stammered his welcome, inwardly cursing his luck. For the old man was known for his alcoholism as well as short temper. His teetotaler nephew was wary of the the inevitable drunken scenes that were bound to ensue.

Cut to January 26. Ram Lal arrived in a good mood. Pradeep seized the moment, telling him earnestly that alcohol was pickling his innards. The uncle snorted, "What a thing to say just when I need a quart to recover from my train journey!" Pradeep scurried off to the nearest booze shop only to find it was a dry day. "What do you mean by dry day? In the village I get my quart whenever I want it! I expected better hospitality from my nephew..." he roared. It was a terrible day. Ram Lal called Pradeep's wife a bad cook and scuffed his son's ears till he was in tears.

He confided his problems to his neighbour that night. "You should have come to me!" he exclaimed, "buying liquor on a dry day isn't impossible, you know." Pradeep stared at him, astonished: How and where, he asked? "Well, Delhi has many enterprising souls who stock liquor to sell at a premium on dry days," his neighbour replied.

As luck would have it, there were four dry days in the week that Ram Lal was in Delhi. So on Muharram when Ram Lal demanded his drink, Pradeep asked his amused neighbour for help. They walked up to a small paan shop facing the local police station. "This couldn't be it," Pradeep fretted, "how can anyone sell alcohol on a dry day in full view of the cops?" The neighbour shrugged, "as if cops never feel like a drink on dry days!"

At the shop, festooned with gay streamers of all the namkeens that pair so well with a drink, the neighbour introduced himself as so-and-so's relative from such-and-such village in Bihar. Identity established, the shopkeeper whipped out a plethora of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh brands of liquor from under a table. They paid double the MRP of a quart of rum, and Pradeep proudly took the bottle home.

On the way back, he was full of questions: "how does the shopkeeper evade the police and excise officials?" he asked. The neighbour replied, "he only sells illicit liquor to people he knows, or knows of. My relative is his regular customer, and that's why he entertained us!" But why, Pradeep wanted to know, would anyone pay double for a bottle of booze? The neighbour replied, "there's no other way to buy booze on a dry day "" the paanwallah knows he has a captive market!" Wouldn't it be cheaper, Pradeep persisted, to stock up on liquor before a dry day? The neighbour said people like him never kept booze at home: "the wife would probably throw it out!" Also, he added, not-so-regular tipplers like him drank when the mood seized them. "Usually dry days are also holidays, and I often feel like a drink when I haven't much to do, or when friends drop in..." he said.

The next day was a dry day again, but Pradeep knew the drill now. He introduced himself as the neighbour's neighbour, a relative of so-and-so from such-and-such village in Bihar, and bought another quart. Dry days could never come between an enterprising tippler and his glass, he reflected. Which meant that they were mainly for the benefit of teetotalers like him... who didn't need them anyway!