No it’s not what you think!!!

Yes, it has something to do with drinking. But before I reveal any more about my phobia, I think it’s only fair that I present my credentials so to speak.

I am one of those occasional drinkers, though in their innate wisdom, a few of my doctors and their nurses have labeled me as an alcoholic. The price of having a couple of drinks once or twice a week is that you get branded as a ‘boozard’…God Help Me…but it is an unfair world.

And it is a world that scarcely believes me when I announce that in the last 35 years that I have been drinking, I have been DRUNK on less than ten occasions. The first time I drank, was also the first time I got drunk. The last time I got drunk was when we shifted gears from an old boys reunion and slipped into a karaoke night and changed our diet from whisky to beer…and two frail young friends of my daughters had to carry me home.

The other time I distinctly remember getting drunk was at my wife’s cousin, father of the gorgeous siblings Tanya and Renu…Vijay Kumar’s house…when he was Commandant of the AP Special Police Battalion at Yousufguda, and he threw a party for his colleagues and a few friends. All I remember is that I had borrowed my brother-in-law’s car for the night and the only momentary touch with sanity and sobriety was when I stopped the car on the way back and asked my wife to drive.

Obviously there have been logical reasons for the drunkenness…it must have been a tiring day…or I was drinking on an empty stomach…or I was just not in a mood to imbibe…or it could have been what I drank.

You see, I am one of those guys who can put away a few whiskies (neat/on the rocks) without even taking a deep breath…except if the brand being served is Johnny Walker Red. One peg of this is enough to make me want to keep on walking.

Or if it is a Bacardi Breezer. Give me a bottle of that monster and I shall be singing lalala-labies within seconds. On the contrary, give me a few Bloody Maries and while I shall celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Lord in heaven…I shall remain stone cold sober…counting the bloody drinks on my neighbor’s hands when I have run out of fingers on mine.

So why am I scared of Pedhapally Kishan?

You see I have been told…and I sincerely believe…that any high that you get when you drink, is not the function of the liquor alone…a lot of environmental factors have a role to play in the intoxication game.

For example, during the days of prohibition, I had gone to Yanam on a shoot…and came back to Hyderabad with a couple of thousand sachets of Portugese Port Wine stuffed into the back of my Sumo and hidden by the equipment. Those were wonderful days when the freezer partied with sausages and the wine and we were just  hangers on.

We tried everything. Wine and Biryani. Wine and Avakaya annam. Wine and bread-omelette. Wine and idli-dosa. And of course, on many occasions…wine and more wine. But while I steered Port for many months I never went starboard or overboard

Not so a few years later when I realized that when the occasion was celebratory and the mood joyous and happy, red wine had a devastating effect on me…and I often landed up happy…but not drunk mind you, never drunk.

A few years back I met this friend of mine…Pedhapally Kishan…the face of Sula Wines in Hyderabad. And a very generous partner in many social and cultural events and get togethers. So we started getting chances to savor his bouquet of wines quite regularly.

And most of the occasions were celebrations of something or the other. So the combination of an inner spirit that dictated joy and the exquisite Sula Wine regularly began to make me heady and happy.

What I realized more recently however is that when I get happy I like to force happiness onto my friends…and often land up bullying them into doing something extremely random.

Ask my friend Khagin Varada and his wife Krishna who dropped in at the Goethe Zentrum ‘One Year at Banjara’ Celebrations to see some of my wife’s art pieces that were on display. Between the joy of seeing her art, seeing some of my films exhibited and the warm, loving mention of the ‘Marurs’ by the Centre Director Amita Desai…I was very happy.

And then came my friend…the Sula Man.

And my happiness switched into automatic pilot mode. I became a bully and forced poor Khagin to host a party at his wonderful apartment…NOW!!!

The evening was wonderful…the food from Sher-e-Punjab delicious. His flat was superb and a great time was had. But damned if I don’t owe him an apology. We not only imposed on his hospitality, raided his bar, attacked his well maintained flat, messed it up and even made his wife entertain us with her lovely renditions of old Geeta Dutt songs but we also started making plans for the next party…much to the horror of the hosts.

Those of you who know me will hopefully agree that I am the gentlest of giants in the worst of times. And that this boorish behavior is but an aberration.

Anyway I am convinced that I am a beast who prefers to walk on the quieter side of life. So what could it be that presses the switch that transforms me thus…it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that the villain in the piece is the glassfuls of red wine that I am consuming whenever there is a celebration, whenever I am feeling happy and most importantly whenever Pedhapally ‘Sula’ Kishan is around.

So what should I watch out for? Be careful when I am happy? Be cautious when I am celebrating? Or…be scared of Kishan