I would not put a thief in my
mouth to steal my brain, William Shakespeare famously said about alcohol.
But nobody took the bard seriously when liquor shops opened across Assam on Monday amid the ongoing lockdown, with a young feminist creating a ruckus for a separate queue for women and men pushing, shoving and squabbling with each other over the brew about which R L Stevenson saidwine is bottled poetry.
Be it thief or poetry, there was a mad rush for the bottle as liquor vends opened after 20 daysages for a tippler.
People in serpentine queues showed exemplary patience in most places as they waited for hours on end for their turn, moving from one circle or a box to another the shopkeepers had drawn outside their counters to maintain social distancing.
The Assam government has allowed opening of all liquor shops, wholesale warehouses, bottling plants, distilleries and breweries for seven hours-from 10 am to 5 pm- daily so tipplers can have their daily fix and state the much needed revenue.
Police personnel were posted at several places so the social distancing regulations could be strictly enforced.
Bottles of popular brands seemed evaporating like spirit in a matter of minutes. An employee at one such shop told PTI that those who would buy a bottle before the lockdown bought five fearing restrictions could kick in again.
"I came to buy a quarter at around 2 pm, but I did not find any stock that I could afford. I have a small job and I cannot afford a big brand," a disappointed Manoj Sharma told PTI in Guwahati.
Standing patiently in a queue that snaked through a street in Kokrajhar, Robin Boro said he was there for over two hours and could wait for a few more.
"This is the first time in my life that I have waited for a bottle for so long. As long as the stock is not finished, I am fine with it. I thank the authorities for opening the shops as people were drinking harmful illicit liquor these days," he added in a matter-of-factly tone.
Ishfaqur Ali from Silchar in the Barak Valley said that people were disciplined and maintained social distancing properly while grabbing hold of their bottle.
A retired bureaucrat in Guwahati said, "Though my stock at home did not finish (during the lockdown), I had to do rationing by making smaller pegs. I am happy that the shops are open today. But I would have not complained even if they had not opened as peoples health is supreme."
A former professor of an engineering institute in the state capital said he had started making the local rice beer at his home microbrewery, which he set up using his technical skills.
"Desperate times call for desperate solutions. Making laopani (rice beer) at home is an Assamese tradition. So,I started making the drink by applying technology to it," he said with a broad smile.
A Delhi-based research scholar, who went to Dibrugarh in Upper Assam for field work and got stuck as the lockdown was announced suddenly, said there was a carnival of sorts on the streets with people going in and coming out of shops in their droves.
And then there was a young woman, who yelled at the crowd and the shopkeeper, as she ran out of patience standing in the queue, and demanded a separate line for women. She had her way.
"Though there was a single line in the shop near my rented accommodation, but it was too long to wait. I did a horrible thing and had to use a weapon (her womanhood) by making a separate line for girls. I know that feminist(s) would kill me for (her conduct). But nonetheless, got it," she wrote on her Facebook timeline.
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