“Always take a stand for yourself, your values.

You are defined by what you stand for.”

It has been over forty years since the incidents I narrate here occurred. But the learning from it remains as significant today as it was then. It was a New Year Eve night.  I was at Kochi.  At the midnight hour when the clocks struck twelve, the ships berthed at the Cochin harbour switched on its searchlights and set off its sirens. Firecrackers exploded all around. The night sky burned in bursts of flashy fire.  Church bells tolled ringing out the old and ringing in the new.  People poured out on to the roads. Vehicles jam packed with revellers tore through the streets. It was the birth of another New Year. It was the call for all to celebrate.  And that call was for me too…

But I seldom participate in celebrations.  There are at least two major reasons for my aversion to celebrations.  One is my fear of crowds.  I have always been a loner by nature. My socialization skills are pathetic. I do not know how to make or maintain social conversations. I tend to be curt, cold, and at times unwittingly offensive in my interactions. I hardly have anyone who can fit the description of a friend – someone with whom I am open, intimate and informal. It was not that I enjoyed such a predicament.  I tried many ways to get around it. But nothing came through. Then it struck me. My discomfitures lie in meeting people ‘live’. But on the social media, one does not have to meet people ‘live’. So, I opened a Facebook account (www.facebook.com/georgekuttyv).  (I am told that this is the only book that the twenty-first century reads.)  I assumed that people would make a beeline to become my friends. But after three months, hardly anyone noticed my presence there. All my attempts to pull attention came to naught. At last, I tried putting a link of my blog there, hoping that people would come flocking to read my posts.  Still, not a single ‘like’, ‘comment’, or ‘share’ – not even from my wife. Well… that should convince the reader about my poor people skills that drives me away from all group activities, which include all functions and celebrations.

My second reason for shunning celebrations is my fear of liquor. All my life I have dreaded booze and boozers.  But as all of us know, more often than not, celebrations are essentially excuses to drink. This is particularly so in my home state. People might deny you a cup of tea but never a slug of booze. Rice and Coconut were once considered the staple ingredients of our diet. These have long fallen from its preeminent perches. Today, the critical component of the diet of a typical Keralite is spirit. Liquor is a mega money-spinner for the government, the liquor barons, the lobbyists and the bootleggers. Of course, liquor is killing people, devastating families, demolishing relationships, and driving people to penury and suicides. But who cares? For the Keralite a happy day is a day of drinking.  New Year, Onam, Christmas, Easter… Independence Day, Republic Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Children’s Day, Teachers’ Day, Wedding Day, Birthday, Holiday, Hartal day, Election Day, Selection Day….  Liquor flows like rivers. New days are added as required to cater to our ever escalating crave for liquor. But that does not mean that we remain sober on days of sorrow. Then, where will we drown our sorrows? When we are sad, we actually need more of it.  So, death, accident, bankruptcy, suicide, divorce, cancer, aids, abortion, Ebola… so on and so forth…  All sorrows are submerged in liquor.  I have always been a teetotaller and cannot help keeping away from celebrations.  

Now, returning to the night of the New Year’s Eve we started with… I was young – just about twenty, and happened to be in the company of a bunch of people of more or less my age. We had a jeep. Someone suggested that we take a ride through the city. I was not inclined to join.  My hesitancy then had little to do with my loathing for liquor, although it was as intense then as today. But, alcoholism was not as open and rampant those days. Society was more in control and was able to exert pressure to keep people, especially the young lot, away from alcohol.  Even though, I had not known my group for long, I did not expect them to be drunkards. My reluctance to join them had more to do with the potential dangers of a midnight ride through a city erupting in celebration. Of course, my discomfort with company too contributed to it.  I suggested that I would stay back.  “No harm in taking a look at the New Year celebrations in the city”, someone said.  I was still not sure. “It is just a joy ride”, they assured. And I got in to the jeep.  The jeep roared into life and sped towards the city.

The city was bedecked and brightly lit for the occasion.  Hotels, eateries, bars and other venues for New Year celebrations remained open, glittering and alive with thronging crowds. The main streets were clogged with people and vehicles.  Our jeep raced through the city roads, screeching tyres and veering violently as it negotiated the curves. It was as if we were on a death-race. I was panic-stricken. I cursed myself for my stupidity of joining the group.  But, for the rest of the group, it was an enthralling experience…

Hours went by. I looked out of the jeep and found that the jeep was cruising along empty lanes in the city outskirts. Then, the jeep stopped with an alarming screech of tyres. My heart missed a beat. I was almost certain that it was an accident. No. It was not an accident.  It was something more injurious, although I did not have even a hint of it at that moment.  One by one, people got down from the jeep. I too followed. The cool whiff of salty seawind caressed my face. I felt the terrors and tensions inside me abating.  Then it struck me that we had halted on a sparsely lit lane somewhere at an obscure spot. The place was unnervingly quiet, and deserted except for us. I could see the lights from the decks of the ships docked at the Cochin port at a distance. The searchlights were switched off; the sirens were silent; only a few lights shined wearily through the foggy air. The celebrations had more or less died down. The New Year day sun was struggling to emerge out of its hiding in the eastern sky. 

Our driver was the last man to alight. He carried a bag. As he moved towards the kerb, the rest of the group converged around him. I was curious and went closer to investigate the magnetism that was pulling people towards the driver.  As he opened the bag, there was a clatter of crystal. With the air of a magician pulling out a rabbit from his hat, the driver fished out a bottle from the bag. Another bottle followed. Then a few glass tumblers appeared. There were no more mysteries about what was happening. I did not have even the remotest suspicions of the people in my group setting out with the preparations for a liquor party. I stood their shattered by the reality that I was on that dark, dirty and desolate road, in the company of a bunch of winos, at the dawn of a ‘Happy’ New Year…

But none cared about my consternations. The contents of the bottles were poured into the glasses.  The filled glasses were passed around. Emptied ones were refilled.  I was deeply distressed.  Someone offered a glass to me. “I do not drink”, I said. “Today you should”, someone said.  I stood my ground. Then I noticed that there was another person besides me, who had not joined the party. His name was Lincoln^*. The glass that I had refused was thrust into his hands.  He too turned it down. Someone else grabbed it.  

As the alcohol started its work inside the drinkers, the situation started turning messier and uglier. They started yelling, laughing, singing and dancing.  Some of them were wobbling on their feet and one or two squatted on the sidewalk probably as a prelude to sprawling on the muck. It was a dreadful scene to say the least. I wanted to get away. But there was no escape. The place was unfamiliar and there was not a soul except us in the vicinity. Lincoln and I were the only sober people in the group.  It was a consolation that both of us were left alone except for the initial pressures the rest put on us.   

But at it turned out, that consolation was short lived. Peter^*was the lead drinker of the pack. His feet were unsteady and his words were slurred. And it suddenly came to his notice that we two were standing aside as mere spectators. Peter was not someone who would brook such blatant impudence. He approached me holding a half-filled glass.  I told him that I never drank and was determined to live an abstainer. But he was too inebriated to be paying any heed. He continued with his persistence.  It was highly irritating and exasperating. But I still refused to budge. Then the melodrama commenced. He held me close and started proclaiming how deeply he loved me as a dear friend and how hurting and heartless I was that I would not oblige him for a sip of drink. I was horrified. It was all rubbish. I had no such intimacy with him. It was a simple case of emotional blackmailing.  Then the sniffles started.  Eventually it increased in crescendo and entered into a state of rip-roaring wailing. I was confounded. The man started sobbing on the shoulders of all by turn. At last, someone suggested that I should play a counter-drama.  “Just pour some water into a glass and drink it before he realizes the trick.”  I did as suggested.  Peter did not notice.  At least he acted so. He hugged me. It was ghastly. I felt devastated. But I also felt that I was smart and handled the situation well. (But within the next twenty-four hours, I would know that I was nothing but a despicable coward…)

Now Peter turned to Lincoln.  The whole farce of the heartbroken chum was re-enacted more elaborately and intensely.  But Lincoln refused to budge. “Our friendship ends this moment.  You will be my enemy from now…Just remember that”, Peter screamed.  But Lincoln remained unmoved. Peter then smashed the glass he had held in his hand on the asphalt. He picked up a sharp piece and threatened that he would cut himself with it.  But Lincoln stood there, unperturbed and unyielding. Others started to plead with him. “Let him do what he wants. But I will not ruin myself for pleasing others”. Eventually Peter realized that Lincoln was  made of sterner stuff and that his antics and arm-twisting would not work with Lincoln the way it worked with me.  After a while, he gave up declaring that Lincoln would remain and avowed enemy all his life. Lincoln just gave him a dismissive smile. In a short while, all got into the jeep and we headed back.

I was disturbed about everything that occurred on that night. In the first place, it was a mistake that I had accompanied the group for that New Year Eve outing. I was also not sure whether I had acted right by succumbing to a boorish boozer’s blackmail. I tried to justify myself.  “I had no other options to save the situation. I only acted drinking and did not actually drink. I saved our camaraderie and came out unscathed…”  I  chose to think that I felt better. But I did not then know that the last word on the story had not been told…

The next evening, I came across Peter. He was supposed to be my close friend (and the sworn enemy of Lincoln).  He was sober and sedate then. He approached me with a warm and disarming smile on his rather handsome face. We exchanged some run-of-the-mill pleasantries. Then he said, “I have been reflecting on the happenings of the last night.” I assumed that he was about to tell me that he was grateful to me for my understanding and cooperation and that he hated Lincoln for behaving in such a rude and adamant manner.  But that was not what Peter said. Instead, he said, “I was thinking about the way Lincoln reacted to the situation yesterday. It is impossible not to appreciate his courage of conviction. He stood their unyielding like a rock in spite of the intensity of the pressures. He knows his values and has the resolve to stand by them.” Peter looked extremely delighted and relieved. I did not know how to react.  Peter patted my back and walked away. And I stood there, dazed and dumbstruck…

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^*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

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