Drinking Man

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

I probably read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island sometime in the early-1980s, approximately one hundred years after he wrote it. I must have been nine or ten years old at that time and the short poem above, which is from the book, made no sense to me back then. But it did seem quite catchy and has somehow remained in my memory over the decades that have passed since.

I quite used to like rum myself. Old Monk, with a bit of Coke mixed in, with lots of ice in it – I used to love that and, more often than not, I drank a quarter bottle of Old Monk once a week. Usually by myself, though sometimes I did have company. I used to look forward to that one day of the week – usually Saturday but it could be any other day also – when I’d wait until 7-7.30 pm and then open up my quarter of Old Monk, pour it out in a glass, add some chilled Coke (often placed in the freezer at least 30 minutes ago) and half a dozen cubes of ice. I’d put on some of my favourite music, often songs from Hindi films of the 1970s-80s or maybe some Jagjit Singh ghazals, and proceed to enjoy the next hour and a half.

To go with the drink, there would often be some snacks. Nothing fancy, the usual peanuts, potato chips and bhujia etc. Maybe some kebabs that I’d sometimes order from one of my favourite places nearby. Usually, I only had the music and my own thoughts to keep me company. At other times, my wife joined me with a glass of Coke or Fanta in her hands, even though she didn’t really approve of these drinking sessions of mine. Less frequently, there were friends or cousins who joined in, though that did not happen too often in Bombay, where I spent a large chunk of my life.    

You might have noticed, I said ‘I used to’ in the context of these drinking sessions. That’s because I haven’t had a drink – not a single drop even – for the last eight years. One day, in the year 2018, after having been a drinking man for around 20-22 years, I decided to stop. And I did. Though I used to drink at least once and sometimes twice a week before I stopped, I somehow never had the urge to go back to my drinking days once I did stop.

All around me, I see kids these days start drinking at an early age, often when they’re still in school, sometime between the ages of 15-16 to 17-18. Things were different back in my time and I did not drink when I was in school and in college. I mean, I might have had one or two drinks in five years of college and that’s about it. Even after completing college, when I started working – first in Baroda and then in Lucknow – I hardly ever drank. Maybe one or two drinks in a year. I wasn’t that I was trying to be a ‘good boy,’ it’s just that I never really felt the need to drink. All I could think of, in those days, was motorcycles. I used to love riding my Yamaha RX100 and my Kawasaki KB125 in those days. Street racing. Wheelies. Seeing how fast, how hard I could corner without falling off. Falling off anyway. And doing it all over again. Reading motorcycle magazines. Watching motorcycle racing on TV and on video cassette. That was my life in those days. There was simply no space for alcohol.

Things changed in 1998, when I moved to Bombay and started working as a tech journalist there. I used to get to office by around 9 am and return to my one-room PG accommodation only by around 8-9 pm. There were no bikes for me to ride in Bombay. Crowded local trains replaced motorcycles. I had left my life – as I knew it back then – in Lucknow, along with all my friends. In Bombay, often, there was nothing much to do in the evening. While returning from work, I used to take a dheemi local from Churchgate to Matunga and then walk for 10 minutes to get to my PG in Mahim.

On most days, dinner would be at a small, basic Maharashtrian eatery near the house where I lived. More often than not, a simple jeera rice and daal fry. But on some days, especially during the first 10-15 days of the month when there was still some money to spare, I used to stop by at a small bar-cum-restaurant near Matunga station, where I’d have a plate of chicken chow mein or, sometimes, chicken chop suey, which they did particularly well. And before the meal, I’d have some… well, Old Monk rum with Coke and ice. It started with one peg, progressed to two and then finally three – one quarter bottle of rum in one sitting. One hour of drinking in peace, all by myself. This was the late-1990s and food/drink wasn’t particularly expensive, especially not at that small joint in Matunga. So, despite being a poorly paid journalist, I could still get by, though things did get progressively tougher as the days passed, with the second and third weeks of every month being restricted to the aforementioned jeera rice and daal fry in the evening.

Gradually, things changed over the years. The pay improved somewhat. I could afford to drink in better, slightly more upmarket places. On Friday and/or Saturday evenings, I often used to go out with friends and colleagues from work. We’d go for a movie somewhere in or near Colaba, have a few beers at Café Mondegar or Leopold Café, eat at Bademiya and catch the last dheemi local to get back home. And yes, this was my beer drinking phase. I still did have my beloved Old Monk rum and Coke but not as often as I used to.

Life changed some more in 2003, when I got married. Going out with friends and colleagues became less frequent. My wife and I used to go out in the evening once a week – we enjoyed exploring eateries all over New Bombay, where we lived, and then in Pune, where we moved to later. In fact, Pune had a different, more relaxed vibe that both of us really liked. Two of our favourite places in Pune, back then in the mid-2000s, were Malaka Spice, in Koregaon Park, and 1000 Oaks, on East Street, in Camp. We spent many a leisurely evening in these places, eating, drinking and just talking to each other. When I look back upon those days, I realise that, one, there were no smartphones back then and, two, there was just so much more to talk about!

After that two-year stint in Pune, we continued to move across the country. From Pune to Bombay, then Dehradun, Greater Noida, again Bombay, then Pune again (this time only for a few months) and finally back to Greater Noida, where we’ve been for the last 10 years. There were many ups and downs over the years and at some point, without realizing exactly when and how, I think I also started drinking a bit more than perhaps I should have. More than, perhaps, anyone should. It never did become a big problem, things never got completely out of hand. But I did realise I should cut back on my drinking, partly also because I had been diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes, and had been quite overweight for years.

I did try to give up drinking and sometimes succeeded. The off-drink spells lasted a few weeks, sometimes even few months, but I always came back to drinking. The temptation to drink was too much for me to resist. I was definitely not a raging alcoholic but did drink at least twice a week – three large pegs of whiskey or rum – and knew that wasn’t a good thing.

As life went on, I entered a particularly difficult face towards the end of 2017 and by early 2018 I was diagnosed with clinical depression. The doctor prescribed some pills and, among other things, warned me to make sure I did not mix those with alcohol, failing which the medicine could have some pretty serious side effects and could possibly mess up my brain completely. I have to admit I was scared and did manage to avoid alcohol completely for a few months, when I was on anti-depression medication. After a few months, my mental state improved and I was able to stop taking the anti-depression medicine that had been prescribed to me.

In these few months, the depression had gradually ebbed away but, surprisingly enough, one more thing had happened. Inexplicably, my desire to drink had also disappeared completely! I simply no longer wanted to drink. Quite surprising, for someone who had quite enjoyed his drink for 20 years or more. And since there was no longer any desire left to drink, I decided this was definitely a good thing and told friends, cousins and anyone else with whom I occasionally used to share a drink earlier, that I’d stopped drinking permanently and would not drink alcohol ever again.    

As could perhaps be expected, by former drinking buddies exhorted me to not give up. Whenever I got together with my friends, cousins and other former drinking partners, some of them would repeatedly urge me to have at least one drink. Just the one. ‘Come one, what harm can one drink do,’ they would ask me. I would steadfastly refuse every time. Because, as we all know, for those who enjoy drinking alcohol, it’s never just one drink, is it? You start with one and then it always snowballs. So, good riddance. I was rid of the desire to drink and couldn’t have been happier.

I gave up drinking in mid-2018 and have not, since then, touched a single drop. Not ever. Not once. No more raging hangovers. No more migraines. And while I’m not sure, I like to believe that even my physical appearance might have improved a bit by giving up drinking. It’s been almost eight years and, while I have once or twice thought about how it might be if I started drinking again, there’s also the realization that having given up drinking has been good for me in every which way possible and there’s just point at all in ever starting again.

I earlier mentioned that I used to drink twice a week, with my favourite music playing in the background. It felt good while it lasted – two or three hours of time that I enjoyed, every week. So, now that that is all gone, what do I do now? What is it that has replaced alcohol, which was an undeniably pleasurable part of my life? A couple of things. I have started reading extensively once again. I used to read a lot in school and college and that continued in the early years of having started working in Bombay. But eventually books and I sort of parted ways after things got ever more hectic at work. But after I stopped drinking, I started buying more and more books (non-fiction only, mostly from Amazon but also from a host of used books websites that have helped me save a fair bit of money) and once again started reading extensively.

The other thing is, well, music. Earlier, I used to enjoy listening to music while having my drinks. Now, the drinks are all gone and alcohol no longer has any place in my life, but all those old songs, all that old music, is still there. And now I think I enjoy it more than ever before. When my favourite songs are playing, I like to sing along with my favourite singers – Kishore Kumar, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet and a few others. And while I sold my Yamaha keyboard a few months ago, I now want to buy another keyboard, a new one, and start playing again. Hopefully, in the next month or two. 

Much has changed over the years. I have lost much and much has been taken away from me. Life has been difficult. But, at the same time, life hasn’t ended either. There’s still some time. For now, at least, life goes on. Things might even change for the better. My hopes and dreams are not what they used to be. They have also changed. There are new hopes. New Dreams. Different ones. Perhaps such is life. Nothing ever remains the same, does it? In the end, everything changes and continues to change.

I’m happy that through all of this, I’m no longer a drinking man.

Postscript: What did I do with the bottles of rum and whiskey that still remained in the house after I quit drinking forever in 2018? To answer that, I’ll quote some lines from Derelict, the poem that Young E. Allison wrote, expanding on Robert Louis Stevenson's Dead Man’s Chest.

We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight
With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight
And we heaved 'em over and out of sight,
With a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well
And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell
Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!