THE people of the most ‘literate’ state of India seem to be in ‘high spirits’ whenever they have a festival. This was a fact that was confirmed during Onam, X’mas and New Year. They spent nothing less than Rs 43 crore to make their Onam colourful and Rs 53 crore for X’mas.
They sure are of the view that life is given once and it is one’s duty to live it to the fullest.
They have been showing this dangerous ‘spiritual inclination’ consistently for many years proving that they can beat Punjab not only in football but also in the consumption of alcohol.
The State is swamped with different brands of illicit ‘country’ liquor with various fascinating names like Manavatti (bride), Anaviratti (which gives you the power even to scare an elephant).
The most fascinating brand is the ‘Easter’ — apparently meaning that you will resurrect only after three solid days. The base of all these ‘divine waters’ is charayam or arrack.
The spurious drinks are distilled at several places under the ‘watchful eyes’ of the police. In certain areas arrack distillation is the favourite pastime for the whole family. In other areas it is rather a cottage industry which brings a substantial income to the ‘distillers’ especially during festivals that are a plenty in the region. They never forget to grease the palms of the excise officials and other sundry officers.
The ingredients they use to make the stuff lethal (and sometimes fatal) are dirty spirit collected from local hospitals, battery cells and lizards to make it deadly. These seemingly innocuous liquids are normally sold to the poorer sections in society at a much cheaper rate. At times the concoction goes out of hand and it has resulted in hooch deaths.
In spite of the supposed strong presence of excise squads these ‘country barons’ flourish without any hindrance. The poor drink this spurious stuff as they find it less expensive and more intoxicating. The labour class of Kerala can ill-afford to go in for the real stuff and so easily fall for the local stuff. This happens in a big way during regional and religious festivals in the State. Come New Year and the youngsters have a field day. They often get drunk and turn unruly and misbehave with the foreigners who come to enjoy the various beaches of ‘God’s Own Country’. These meetings result with a bad feeling in the mouth caused after being rounded up by the cops for creating trouble. People in the state prefer hard liquor as the levels of intoxication is high and one becomes ‘fit’ (stone drunk) much quicker.
Now that the media has given the enviable sobriquet ‘spiritually inclined’ to the people of Kerala, it is very likely that the State would soon be known as ‘Devil’s Own Country’. This will be the second distinction given to Kerala after it was described as the ‘suicide capital of India.’ Come any festival like the new year, you would come across people making a beeline at the local beverage corporation office to purchase India Made Foreign Liquor.
I have come to believe that to dream one need not sleep — just drink. And the people seem to think that the secret of life is drinking and then living it out.
They want to make today sweet rather than wait for an unborn tomorrow. Existentialists they are, in a very real way.
Mail contributions to: timeout@epmltd.com