WHY NOW???

I did hear bursting of crackers when the clock struck 12.00 a.m. today. No funeral ceremony nor religious festival at the least. A group of young men in the neighborhood, were celebrating their jubilation. Their much awaited victory. The unlocking ceremony. Yes, the government has lifted the ban on the sale of liquor in TASMAC retails. When only a few hours is left for the pompous mob to rush towards their favorite wine shop to buy their favorite brands of liquor and as common men, responsible citizens of this privileged nation, some of us are left with bewilderment of what is happening around. The formidable government and the intimidating situation needs serious questioning. The very first question will be a simple why? Is it for revenue? Or reversal of economic stability? If the answer is yes, then it’s an evident lie. When thousands of crores were written off as bad loans, a mere 350 crores never sounds a lump sump amount of dire emergency. By and large, a huge amount of money was donated from every sector, from public to private, from one day salaries to deferred six days salary. From the savings of common man to the savings of tax scooped money. From our children’s piggy bank and from the sleeves of the beggars. All those money were responsibilities that we took in charge to unburden the government, only to save and tune the country’s wealth to protect a generation from its extinct.

What did not we see in these forty days of pandemonium. We witnessed brutal attacks on the common man by your law enforcement. We saw vegetables in garbages. We did see communalised cornering. We saw poor labourers, tramping thousand miles with no food nor water. Yet we stood with your stupid policies, only with the hope that human and humanity still be preserved and that which can happen only if this generation survives. We stood with you for our survival and your survival. And to a large extent, humanity was persisting unlike the other periods. We saw people extending helping hands to the poor, while your hands were clapping and lighting lamps. We took care of each other, when your pittance of thousand rupees was not sufficient to feed our children. We ignored every amusement, we did not protest, we kept to ourselves, all that we wanted to do. We invented virtual platforms, and we did everything virtual in reality.

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Many a things changed in our lives. Our lives itself changed. We took to the most significant aspect of keeping ourselves home, and gave ourselves to our families, when many a times we were not able to, just because to pay your imposed loathsome taxes. Most importantly we quit many of our habits. We were about to appreciate you for the utmost care offered in helping our husbands quit this evil habit of drinking and instead kiss and play with our children. We were ready to appreciate your gesture of helping our mothers in feeling happy for their sons, who stopped drinking and started doing household chores. We were about to thank you on behalf of our women, who finally were able to attain peaceful sleep at nights. We were about to show our respect to you for curbing domestic violence and innumerable murders, whose prime cause was liquor consumption. We were about to cherish this golden quarantine. But no, we will remain the old vice.

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Our sons, fathers and brothers will qeue up before the sunrise in front of TASMAC wine shops today and they are about to lockhorns with many a things, including the virus. When we all ran the race together, and when the victory line is clearly visible and still with thumping heart and clear focus and conscience, when the youth and middle aged men of this nation were about to understand to shoulder the responsibility of stabilising this great nation, you gave them a baton to run backwards, a reversal race, whose track they cannot see from the front. And by running backward, there is going to be much chaos than a victory line. In fact it is no victory line, but a line from were everything started. Some of them may even cross the starting line, but they may go even behind the line, taking us back and into the dark. Now we hear the wailing wives, sobbing mothers and frightened children, looking at a demon in a husband, son and a father. We will witness deaths. A bigger pandemonium out in the streets and inside the once peaceful homes.

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You did not give an answer for the simple why? We know it is just by filling the pockets of those pilfering politicians, the restless Al Capones of India have started the game of breaking the chain. Yes we do know, that it is to break the recent habit of not drinking. Breaking the chain of all those goodness culminating in us. You don’t want us good. Our goodness doesn’t hold your distilleries. Your pockets won’t be filled, unless our livers burn. You can’t sleep on your spring mattresses, unless we lie topsy turvy in the gutters. Your children shall not have sophisticated education abroad, unless our children are forced to work in match industries. You shall not become leaders, unless we become alcoholics. You brew your luxury liquor fermenting our sweat, blood and morale. When we don’t drink, you cannot survive. If we drink, only you survive. We won’t ask you why you let us die ? We simply ask WHY NOW???