HYDERABAD: We sure are disgusted by the ‘Gutka Mukesh’ ad before a movie begins, but there’s always at least one gutka eater in the theatre who is inspired by Mukesh’s hollow jawline and decides to quit gutka the very next day. I’m sure there’s at least one person who reads ‘Smoking Kills’ on cigarette packs and has thrown them away for good. I mean, that’s what the warning is there for, right? It must have worked somewhere; otherwise, why would they stick to the same format for years? I’m yet to meet, read, or hear about that person, but I believe in the Indian ‘Tobacco’ Corporation and the systems it has in place to reduce smoking.
Once you get caught in a drunk driving case and get counselled by a constable who shows funny accident videos — minus the laugh track — you are bound to quit drinking. Clearly, the increasing number of drunk driving cases proves that this method works. These examples might be exaggerations, but after Prabhas’s doubtfully sober anti-drug campaign video, I’m sure every drug addict in Hyderabad has decided to quit drugs.
Victor Hugo once said, “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” and if that idea is sobriety, I wonder how a day would feel like when all of Hyderabad is nothing but sober.
You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth slowly, get ready half-heartedly, and have milk and idly instead of filter coffee and idly. You feel even sleepier, like your breakfast decided to lull you back to bed.
The pride of sobriety gives you just enough push to start for work, so you book an auto. The auto driver wishes you good morning and asks, “How are you doing this fine morning?” Because he just quit his gutka, his mouth is now available for small talk. The ride is conversational but a bit slow because it was the kick in gutka that acted as a Nitro boost and made the autos fly.
Now you’re late to work, so you try to push yourself hard. Two hours later, the stress hits, and it’s time for a break. Except it’s no longer a sutta break — it’s a pranayama session with 20 other stressed-out colleagues. The same people you once bonded with over sharing lighters are now competing to see who can inhale more air.
When you go back to work, your boss, who is sober and, because of that, is now a little sharper, observes that you have exceeded break time because yoga takes more time than smoking. He sends you a warning email, and it has bullet points because sober bosses are efficient like that.
You’re frustrated, but you finish the work so you can meet your friend at the park. After all, the only bar that runs in the city is Akbar. You bitch about your boss but don’t plan his murder because that’s what sober people do. Your friend listens to the whole story. Now, your boss’s image is etched into his brain, and as he sleeps sober that night, your boss will appear in his dreams and torture him.
You go home and try to watch a web series called ‘Breaking Bread’, where a dying chemistry teacher sells bread to save his life and family. The series is so dull that it puts you to sleep faster than that last peg of the day.
You wake up again in the morning, ready to take on the world — high on life.
(The writer’s views are his own)