Beer and The Fairer Sex.

I m an alcohol virgin, not out of ideology may be but because of lack of chance i have never even had a taste of it, however, that's not something i portray as a virtue! In spite of having a medico in my family i m pro-alcohol when it is in moderation and am comfortable with the notion of social drinking. What i detest is however the hypocrisy of men regarding female drinking which is why i intended to write this piece.

We are all now broad minded. Drinking does not raise eyebrows anymore. I have friends and cousins who drink and its NOT a taboo to me, but when my brothers, guy friends and boyfriend still holding the beer can preach me that i should not be drinking, a part of me wants to turn a liquor baron that instant (as if liquor barons are the one who drink their guts out, but just wanted to use something that sounded extreme!) or may be Devdas... This prescription of non-alcoholism for women you are connected with is the meanest form of duality! You want their shoulders when u are in ur alcoholic worst (read HIGH) but want to keep them devoid of the pleasure: be it of drinking, of socializing over drink or of the subsequent high feeling and the feeling of being taken care of when high! And why so, coz drinking women are taboo? No u did not care when ur office colleague (a woman) drank to nose in the party..coz she wasn't ur girlfriend, ur best friend, ur wife, ur mother ur sister? right? Women in relations, consanguinous or conjugal or semi conjugal should not drink. Period.

That still being comparatively a problem closer to home, the behaviour you get having ordered for beer is even more ridiculous. Wearing a bindi you are not supposed to order for beer. I don't have too many personal experiences to share, but reaction of the pan wallahs when my best friend, who happens to smoke, asks for cigarette is just too corroborative. Raised eyebrows, contempt-filled eyes, disbelief at how someone in kurti and jeans, so homely looking, over-clad in a duppatta ask for a cigarette! 'Let my sales dip (not really) but i wish she wasn't smoking' kind of look which i have seen often actually forces me to believe that men in general also are still uptight when it comes to tolerate a cigarette between the fingers of a female being or may be a beer glass in her hands....We are the nurturers, the care-takers, the situation sambhalo ones. Hence booze is not our cup of tea!

More than breaking my alcohol virginity for the sake of 'lets try it once' it is this hypocrisy which propels me to have in my life at least a few socially embarrassing moments of extreme drunkardness.....to give the 'concerned' men in my life a little jolt!