In hindsight, had I been attentive to His message, that coitus interruptus would have been my saviour.

Dulli is a hamlet. In fact I am not even sure if it is one. Maybe it is a liquor shop with a village around it.

All that Ajit and I knew is that Dulli has a solitary liquor shop that sits on the Kalka-Simla road, perched exactly astride the inter-state border. It sold relatively inexpensive alcohol, its owner having grasped the importance of geography in locating liquor vends i.e. high taxes in one of the neighbouring regions encourages thirsty hordes to drive up, queue up and cough up at the altar of the less-taxed shops. He also sold pickle; somehow it spiced up the sales. 

Ajit and I came across Dulli on our three-day long hike from Kalka to Simla (and back to Solan), in the year of our lord, 1975. We were both 17, that June, and extremely corruptible.

We bought beer, ‘one full bottle’ of it (I wonder if we knew that it is not sold in denominations smaller than a bottle; those were the stone-age days where, unlike the kids of today, no one could boast of a 'drinking problem' at 14.). We went for beer because as initiations go, it was supposed to break us gently into manhood. Beyond that we did not have a clue.

The bottle was opened and, for ease of carriage, poured into an army water-bottle. Quite clearly, in these matters we were not yet across the threshold of literacy and had not been exposed to the fact that with every degree of rise in temperature, beer tends to become less and less alluring.

We unplugged the water-bottle half-way to Solan, after we had walked for six hours and had silently concluded that we had earned our beer. One swig of the frothy, boiling stuff was quite enough to induce a sudden and complete surrender. Apparently forever. Yes, never again the lousy stuff! Why do people drink anyway? Who can stand this horrid taste? The beer was decamped and the canteen washed for the next three years.

Ah, well……

No lessons are ever learnt by some of us, no cosmic hints taken, no counsel of taste-buds heeded…… and now, in the intervening 31 years, more of that and stronger stuff has gone down my hatch than is ‘enough’ for a battalion of very thirsty troops serving in sub-Sahara desert. I am not an alcoholic yet (though I do not know why) but unheard and unloved, my liver has been begging for mercy for decades. Any day now, I will be surprised by the morning newspaper headlines, “Liver Says He Is Innocent; Begs The President’s Intervention”. “Is it right in a democracy”, Ms Arundhati Roy will ask, “to sentence a liver to death without hearing its side of the story?”

But the wheel came full circle recently, when Ajit reappeared. He and his wife Soumya, both doctors, stayed with us for the first ever time. Over bonfires, parties and conversations, we did some power-drinking. Mid-winter madness!

And before they left, they proposed that it was time I took a vow to whittle down this daily achievement. If I did so, they (moderate drinkers on most days) will scale it down or even give it up!

I pondered over the proposition. I am an extremist. Not for me the middle-path of moderation. I take all-or-nothing view of most things. And this appeared to be a defining moment when I could cross the Rubicon. Into a life of sense and sensibility. But, I did not want to make a promise I would not keep….

With a heavy heart, I have promised never to exceed two small drinks. Ever.

(A friend who has known me for sometime quipped, “Two small drinks, followed by two smalls followed by two smalls…….?” Naaaah.)

So years after I took that road never travelled, I am winding down the slopes. More like I have bungee jumped.

Suddenly, my liver has emerged from nowhere and is singing lustily. Towards the end of the parties, I am no longer tempted to ask the eternal Hindu question, “What is my purpose and what am I doing here?” In get-togethers, my vision remains my own and does not acquire that heightened laser-like sharpness that makes other people’s moles and warts stand out in stark relief. I am less inclined to take definite positions on issues of national interest and even less likely to contradict myself six times in two paragraphs. I clearly remember who the host is (at least once in the past, I expected the host to leave because I felt so much at home, I thought it was my own!). When I wake up on another-morning-after, I am no longer like the Bollywood hero of yore, who upon being hit by a train, opened his eyes (much later) and asked, “Main kaun hoon?” The early morning throb that used to be like a joint microphone-eating rendition of Can I Test Your Ear Drums by Aerosmith, Godzilla, Mettalica and Led Zeppelin, has now been replaced by Kenny G played at gentle volume.

In fact, I have already attended a few parties since that defining moment. Two drinks, taken at super slow speed, actually work so much better! Our systems are designed to soak up the contents gently and it is 40 minutes before the blood-stream is tickled by the sensuous feather of a small drink. Earlier, I did the truck-drivers’ relentless drinking and quite clearly got drunk only in my dreams!

 My friends are flabbergasted. They perpetually want to take my temperature. They ask my wife if I am on anti-biotic for a mysterious viral. Their wives are nudging them, “If even he can do it, why not you”.

I am smiling a lot.

I will soon be fitter and richer.

And, I will be alive when that happens!