To Be or not To Be

“To Be or not to Be.”

Thus cried out Prince Hamlet in great anguish, as he started off his tirade; a fierce debate raging in his mind, whether to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or to “take arms against a sea of troubles by opposing end them”.

[William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Act three, Scene one. The essential purport is that his state is so wretched that death would be decidedly preferable to it. So Hamlet wonders eloud, in his dilemma whether to Live on or to commit suicide.]

One of the best soliloquies ever penned by the Bard.

Our English lecturer, I heard, did quite a wonderful job in teaching it, but sadly, I never could empathize with our hero; felt that the whole display of dilemma was unnecessary, unjustified and highly theatrical. I eventually ended up staring wistfully at the boys, who, without a care in the world, played basketball on the courts outside while I slugged it out in class. It seemed highly unlikely then, that I could ever relate to the plight of our prince. It is another matter that I did relate, rather strongly, in the most unrelated circumstances.

It happened while I was standing at a crossroad on the way back from office. I was quite tired, after a stressful day at office.

The road which went straight would lead me home. The road which went left had a rather non-descript looking building at its fag end. The building, in turn, had a translucent, diamond shaped name board on top of it. The name board was white, was fiercely illuminated by a bright, white neon bulb which shone inside it. Three letters of the English alphabet were inscribed boldly on it in blue.

'B', 'A' and an 'R'.

BAR.

It was New Year, and I was still fresh from my New Year resolution which forbade me from drinking again. The new-born teetotaler and the age-old beverage connoisseur inside me (sorry, I hate the word drunkard – it is so degrading and commonplace), engaged themselves in a duel. One pushed me forward. The other pushed me to the left. To the road where the bar was. A whole avalanche of ideals, concerns – both health and monetary, ennui and stress, weighed in to add spice to the duel.

It is tough to stop an old habit and tougher to refrain from it once you have stopped it. But it is toughest; when you have stopped unwillingly, and a chance to resume the habit comes up and there no solid reason to let the chance go.

The dilemma was all-pervasive. If I were not on the road, and if my creative instincts would have backed me up, I would have broken into a thundering soliloquy of my own, right then. Maybe Shakespeare, if he was alive and had seen me, would have needed no more inspiration to repeat his magnificent feats.

I stood confused, scratching my head. An epitome of uncertainty, very much like our Prince Hamlet. The board stood in the distance, a titillating sight to my weary eyes and stressed nerves.

It is such a lovely place, the bar. With its mysterious dim lights and its smell, which is a curious mix of alcohol, tobacco smoke and human sweat. You walk in, and somehow feel suddenly at home. The sight that greets you is that of a whole group of men, each at varying degrees of inebriation, staring dreamily at each other.

You never find such a relaxed group anywhere else - I’d swear by that. Some would be laughing, celebrating something. Some would be unwinding, after a tiring day at work. Some would be hunched close together, and sharing a secret or two. Overall, the air is of genuine relaxation. It rubs off on you, and once you have had your share, you blend seamlessly into the laidback air that seems to hang over the room like a comfortable woolen blanket.

The ambience and the drinks encourage you to wear your heart on your sleeve. How else, other than under the influence of the Divine Drink, can you give someone a piece of your mind; still walk up to him the next morning, and seek forgiveness, under the ludicrous excuse that you weren’t in your senses?

Of course, there are killjoys. Sparingly though. They throw tantrums, spread destruction, get into brawls and spoil the fun. Thankfully, they are just a minor aberration. Let us ignore them.

And then, there are the waiters who never cease to amaze you with their power of recollection. Walk in a couple of times into a bar and if you are consistent with your choice of brands, be sure the guy would not need to take an order the next time. So good, so reliable, are their retentive abilities. And not just in the matter of remembering the brands.

Once, somehow, I forgot my belt in a bar, and went in search of it the next morning. I struggled to find the waiter who had served me, and was trying to find him out from the assembly of white-and-white clad men who roamed about, when the guy came out running with my belt and even enquired what happened to the car that I regularly drove. Incidentally I had come in my friend’s car on the day.

These waiters; their case is a study in irony. They busily scurry around, catering to the calls from every corner of the room, handle the most liquor in the bar but eventually end up consuming very little of it. Very much like male bees who do all the donkey work for the females to feed on.

Speaking of males and females, there is one thing which is thankfully absent in bars as long as you are in India. Women. With the result that you don’t get an inferiority complex seeing amorous couples sitting hand-in-hand; you don’t damage your ear-drums by exposing yourselves to the high-pitched chit-chat and gossip. And most importantly, you don’t get distracted from the task at hand. Finally, you end up agreeing with the oft-disputed theory that the world would have been a much better place if it was not for the fairer sex.

You get such a lot of wonderful insights, few of which I have mentioned already, while you are at the bar, that you don’t realize how quickly time passes.

By the time you finish your drink, the bill comes. Figures typed out by a dot-matrix printer, on cheap quality paper. It comes, most often, in a porcelain plate with a bunch of Jeera thrown atop it. If you feel that the drinks leave a bad taste in the mouth (literally, not idiomatically) you could always take a handful of the Jeera and pop it into your mouth and masticate to your heart’s content.

The bill is often quite steep and leaves a medium to large sized hole in your pocket. But the beauty of the whole thing is that, as you stare at the bill, swaying on your feet and struggling to keep your eyelids open, you don’t feel it is expensive. You even go on to tip the waiter generously and his thankful smile and his barely perceptible bow seem to make you incredibly happy.

Now, that’s yet another thing that I have always noticed with people who drink. We don’t cringe over money. Over the little trifles that a human being is bound to loose, time and again, in this cruel, mad, insensitive world. We don’t bring money with us when we are born, nor do we take it with us when we die. Do we?

So much for philosophy. Unless exorbitant, every sum lost is equated to the price of a peg or two, or to the price of a cigarette pack. This helps us a great deal to reconcile to the loss at hand. And to drown the little sorrow that remains in even more drinks.

Okay buddies, I forget that I am still on the streets, staring at the lovely name board, perched atop the building, which bathed in twilight, now seems prettier than ever before. The teetotaler in me, I realize, has sunk away and no longer troubles me by pushing me into indecision. I ache for a drink, curse the wretched moment at which I made my resolution, and walk with firm footsteps towards the building which stands ahead and beckons me.

I am amazed that I needed so long to take such a simple decision. With due apologies to the Bard, I rechristen the fierce dilemma that I endured over the past few minutes.

With a couple of extra ooz’s thrown in between.

With the soul of the soliloquy quite intact.

“To Booze or not to Booze.”