Getting bronze medal in drinking

Free Thinker *

A dry State becoming number 3 in drinking sounds oxymoronic. But we can’t be unhappy for getting the bronze medal in this vast country. The surveyor perhaps doesn’t understand the intricacies of our cultural drinking pattern.

Even today if you go to Sekmai, Andro, Phayeng, Kakching or any remote village in the hills for a ceremony like marriage, child-birth, engagement etc., you are normally served with the homemade alcoholic brew or locally prepared. Everyone takes it just like we take water or tea; if you consider this customary practice as actual drinking, we have nothing to say. Then we deserve the gold in place of bronze.

Because counting all those would certainly outdo Telangana and Goa . I read somewhere that similar practices are still in vogue in other parts of the country. In Rajasthan there are villages where poppy juice is served to the guests as part of their customary tradition; for this you can’t malign or arrest them for serving poppy to the public.

In our villages where influence of outside culture is minimal or nil, if you attend a ritual or social gathering or festival you are supposed to take the customary drink otherwise the host or the organizer may think otherwise( disrespectful). We find this practice in old localities and villages and also in the remote hills areas.

Moreover prohibition is redundant for such customary practices. Men , women , boys and girls have drinks together as a part of community-social gathering. There is no hue and cry about this . If I understand correctly prohibition has nothing to do with this practice. The State machinery understands it.

Only when our traditional local brews are being exploited commercially, the prohibition law is invoked. I have a law degree from a night college; if I am wrong please pardon me. As far as the real foreign liquors and Indian made foreign liquors are concerned – these are imported from outside. Only high & mighty and middle class can buy and consume them.

Lesser mortals only enjoy the local brews. What is surprising is that foreign liquors are available in plenty in every corner of the State. The black marketers are having a gala time. Once an unemployed youth asked me what can he do to earn a good living? I told him , try to get in touch with those who perform the benevolent service of bringing and selling foreign liquors using safe channels, you will become rich in no time.

Now I heard that he is in a much better business, he is in politics. We all know our ‘dry’ status has no meaning; everyone gets what he or she wants ; but little expensive. I really don’t understand the logic of prohibition particularly in our context. When the liquor is sold , purchased, carried, consumed and even stored , we are not doing the right thing for the State and the people.

State is losing revenue as excise duties. Legally people are restrained from doing brisk business in liquor. Still worst is, we are suppressing business opportunities of “yu”. A few days back I got two K5( Blended Bhutan Whisky) from Bhutan. Though I am not a connoisseur of drinks, the quality is not up to the mark; frankly our Sekmai has the edge .

And a few years ago I was in Goa, I tested the finest Feni, still our Andro is finer. Long ago I had ‘Solan’ but Phayeng does better. Once upon a time , Pu (L) Holkhomang Haokip when he came back from Russia told us that the Russian Vodka is just like our ‘Machin’. That means the quality of our ‘Machin’ is as good as the strong Vodka.

A few days back, Hon Chief Minister has expressed the willingness to allow commercial use of our local brew, by exporting it. The idea carries a good economic sense.

If the prohibitionists are worried about public health and Manipur rice, I have two propositions – the brew manufacturers should not be allowed to sell their products in the State as suggested by CM; and strictly & legally local rice must not be used in commercial production of brews; one Sekmai specialist told me that Burmese rice can provide a similar effect .

There is nothing ignominious about being number three in drinking in the country. Many developed countries are among the world’s heaviest drinkers. France, UK, Belarus, Ireland, South Korea, Australia , Germany etc., are among the top 25 counties of the world in per capita alcohol consumption .

I am not justifying drinking. Quality , quantity and frequency must be decided by the consumer. This is the norm everywhere in liberal democracies. Prohibition not only kills State revenue, curtails civil rights but also economic possibilities of our highly deserving brew. Lift the ban, dry is a misnomer.