Yes!yes! I don’t drink sharab. Any kind of it not even a breezer. I have not touched it, sipped it, licked it, etc.  I have never been curious about it nor do I think I miss anything important. Due to which my friends call me boring, stupid, stubborn and what not. They also believe that its one of the components of having no boyfriends. (which I think is unfair because I have no issues if my guy is a responsible drinker)  I know they all love me (I love them too) and mean well so I listen to all of them but don’t do anything about it.  I don’t think I ever will.

I am not a very religious person and religion has never stopped me from doing anything. So religion is not it! I know gone are the days when alcohol drinkers were not so open about being sharaabi or people especially women drank secretly worried about “what others would say”! Women today are as good drinkers as men, and they do it without any apologies which I love. It’s great actually it’s undoubtedly the best times to be a woman.  We are working hard and partying harder.

When I was younger ( I am still ver young) I felt I was the best person in the world. I took myself too seriously. As I grew , travelled the world I realised I am just one of the decent people in the world. I started laughing at my notion of being the best person alive. Similarly with alcohol, I had no doubt in my mind that people who drank it had no moral values. They were jobless and with no aims in life. Bollywood can hamper a child’s mental progress I tell you. I was that stupid only because of all the movies I saw in the 90’s. I don’t really remember aai-baba ever discussing alcohol with us. But  in a middle-class Marathi family, your father being a banker , mom being a teacher you just grow up thinking alcohol drinking is prohibited. I never saw my parents drinking neither too many people around me. ( i think dad gulps down a few sips, without mom knowing, which is ofcourse not true mom knows everything !) So alcohol was never a part of the thinking process.

Ofcourse all my stupid notions of people who drink alcohol has changed. I know the best people in the business drink. Most of my friends drink and they are really good people. They are as wise as funny or as intelligent as a non drinker. I am no one to judge anyone on the choice of their drink. To put things in perspective the most I have laughed is when my friends around are drunk and they have lost their guard.  Alcohol they say is all about losing control, about being happier,  about losing all your inhibitions and what not, i am sure it’s all of it.

So after all this chatter, why don’t I drink? It’s very simple for me actually. I know alcohol is bad for your body.(all the more if you play a sport)  It can kill you. It’s a scientifically proven fact and there’s no two ways about it. It’s not like the question, ‘ does god exist?’. Alcohol can and if not in controlled measures will kill you.  In the NGO I help out most of the fathers are drunkards abuse their children and hit their wives black and blue. I have seen lot of people use alcohol as a solution to all the problems and in the bargain increasing the problems all the more.I have met innumerable women who go through hell especially so in the poorer sections of society.  There are hundreds of cases you hear of drunk driving and prices people have to pay for it.   I see their bereaved families and I get all the more angry and disgusted.  People getting drunk and making a tamasha and ruining your party is pretty irritating too.

I don’t think personally I need alcohol to have fun or be happy ,or happening for that matter. Period! I don’t want to make it sound like I am some great freedom fighter  but I take me being a mocktail person as a silent and personal revolt against all the women I have seen suffering and the loved ones I have lost because of it.  ( I know my friends might think this is the most idiotic thing I have ever said, but I will take the risk,  it’s the truth.  Sadly ,You are friends with an idiot deal with it. 🙂 🙂 )

They say , “never say never”.  I always say one day when I have achieved everything that i want to or if someone really special asks me to, I will have that first drop of the forbidden drink, that so many people love and can die for. Till then  I am just really happy being a ‘Mocktail Girl’ !