Another day, another life, another bottle - Cheers!

He woke up from a splitting headache.  The room was spinning all around.  The eyes just could not focus on anything, every object appearing double and swirling around, like ghost-like apparitions.   It was as if a ten kilo dead-weight was tied around the shoulder and to top it all, a sledgehammer was constantly pounding down every ten seconds on the head..  The throat was parched. Eyes red, puffy and blurred. 

'Why do I inflict this on me every other day?' he asked himself.  As if the answer is just lurking round the corner, just waiting to be discovered..  Even if it were, he was shrewd enough to pretend none existed.  This is nothing is new, he has seen it all, a thousand times.    This is how it is this morning, this is how it was the morning before  and this is how it will be the morning after tomorrow.  Every alternate dawn  is bleak, dreary and dark.  Pity that such a beautiful human invention like alcohol has to come with such a terrible aftermath.  Nectar laced with poison. Evenings  whizzing past through shimmering light, suddenly ploughing into a dark-hole the mornings after.     The majestic flight over the mountains  suddenly culminating in a heavy thud.  That’s how life is.  Full of ups and downs.  Ninety nine percent times, it is the lingering phases of downs that succeed the fleeting  ups and never vice-versa.

But he could clearly remember the evening before. With all the practice acquired from meticulous, professional guzzling skills, he never, these days, gets stoned.  That stage has passed.  The drive along the ECR, the jokes, the banter, the  leg-pulling all along the journey, the checking into the sea-side resort, the glistening expanse of the  sea just behind, the warm caress of the breeze, dusk slowly descending.....and the uncorking of the bottles, the emptying of one glass, and then the next, and then the next and then the next….....that great feeling of  floating away, the animated discussions, the quarrels, the shouts, the laughs, the arguments, the skype conversations with a pal ten hours behind,  the collapsing on the bed, the relapse into that swooshy darkness....…. and now waking up from a reverie that lasted probably half a second, that too into this hell,  he has seen it all…....

He somehow pulled himself up, had a shower, and a large cup of coffee.  That seemed to just work a bit.  But he knew better.   It was all a temporary relief.  The body takes at least a few hours to flush out the toxins.  And with the quantity that was imbibed last evening, it might take this whole day to detoxify.  “Thank God, it’s a Sunday”, he thought. 

And when the friend suggested they drive further down to Pondicherry, rather than staying put in the room, he could not care less.  Remaining curled up on the bed for another   3 hours is not going to help, so why not grab the offer? After all, he will only be a passenger in the car.  And so off they started to Pondy.  He did not have a very  enjoyable journey. The concoction inside the stomach still churned.  He even tried to forcibly throw up to rid himself of the scum inside the guts and clear the head, but not with much success.  'The bloody hangover...' he thought.   Any amount of practice will not let you escape its clutches, the morning after.  What has to be endured, must be.  No way to escape the reaction of every action, that's what science says.  Somehow he and the friend reached Pondy.  They headed straight to Auroville to have a 'dekho'.

It’s a queer concept, this Auroville is.  The city, still evolving, has inhabitants  from a hundred nations.  All living or trying to live together, yet away from each other, maintaining their personal spaces.  No religion is practiced here, for ‘religion divides’, as they say.  They seek to discover that human unity amidst diversity. They seek to discover a method in the surrounding madness, a rationale in the randomness, a meaning where none exists.  God bless the souls.  And God bless us, who religiously, very touristily, did the rounds of the place, happy in spotting all the exotic animals inside a well-managed zoo, managed to marvel at the spectacle  and come back with a slight halo around the heads.  As if we were already half way towards salvation.

As they wandered around and did the mandatory darshan of that Matrimandir dome, did the rounds of the boutiques with high-priced merchandise, had food and were ready to depart, by that time, signs of normalcy had returned to our protagonist.  It has, after all, been nearly 5 hours since he woke up. By the time he could have some grasp of what the Auroville folks do in the name of living, the head cleared, the hangover became manageable, Aurovilleans seemed more quixotic,  the clock struck 12 noon and they decided to wind up and return home.

The return journey was eventless, save for the small tidbits of fun and bafoonery emanating from the car radio - a song from a Sivaji film, evoking hilarious  images of his 90 kg bulk cavorting around trees and trying to hug and kiss a 20 something....Ha, ha,ha  what fun to replay the song in the mind.... Forgive him, this was the Sivaji of the nineties.  Not of the same clan as   who went by the same name in the fifties and sixties in Tamil cinema.  

And then the Kumbakonam Degree Coffee they finally managed to have before entering the city, after skipping scores of such outlets on the way.  The sheer number of this Kumbakonam coffee joints dotting the highway, amazing.  Most of them fakes, just out  there to cash in on the name.  High time Kumbakonam got a patent for the trademark...

Thus began and ended his weekend.  Started without  fuss, reached a crescendo mid way, thudded down with a mighty fall, and ended colourless, tasteless and odourless, not unlike hydrogen (or oxygen or helium or whatever- he never shared a good chemistry with chemistry).  But he did not quite care for an eventful life, it will suit him fine if life  follows the documented regimen and never deviates to give nasty surprises.  Life is short, who wants to prune it further with surprises and heart attacks during its short span?  He tried to reminisce back by a month. The past month was equally eventless as the weekend gone by.  Still went back by a year.  Arey, the year was as eventless as the month that went by.  The year before?  Wah, same, same.  The last five years?  Hurrah, same, same,...Yesterday, same, same... Today, same, same..... the entire span of the past, same, same,.....

Same, same, same, same........the words resonated inside his head.  At times they sounded shame, shame... but he did not care.  He did not give a damn to illusions......

It's now a full forty eight hours after that Sunday afternoon. Sunday trough, Tuesday crest, Thursday trough, Saturday crest...what beautiful unflinching regular frequency!  Even his ECG would not be so perfect.  The last trough has been given a good bye. It is now past for him He is now waiting to ride the crest again this evening.  Looking forward eagerly to it.  Waiting for a mate who will ride with him this evening and every other evening. Sure, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday mornings would hit troughs but he is prepared for it.  Because he will not be surprised by these low patches.  Because he hates surprises.  He now knows for sure what's going to happen for the next 3 hours.  That exciting feeling of looking forward, that expectations, those moments will also carry him through the hell-hole hours of the troughs.  

They say he has a problem.  He sees 'them' as the problem.  They ask him to quit, refrain.  He asks them to clear away, come nowhere near.  They are concerned by the regularity, he sees comfort in that same regularity.  They say the crests should be at lesser frequencies, he sees no reason to interfere with nature's wavelengths.  He is happy and so are they.  Life goes on for all, some riding the crests, the others negotiating troughs but waves will confront all forever.....

Ah, he forgot to ask - Do the Aurovilleans too ever get hung over?