A spirited business, but

Man's relationship with alcohol is as old as history, as old as Nature. There are few memories more delightful or more graceful than elephants drunk on Mahua flowers. Or, the Mahua intoxicated bears of Orissa, capering in blissful oblivion. They turn into the most benign and vulnerable of species and the Forest Department has to work overtime to protect them from humans. To get back to the elephants, in the forests of Karnataka they are known to go snooping around quite inculpably for tapped toddy awaiting fermentation. Every single tribal society traditionally had a balanced and beautiful relationship with spirituous stimulants. It helped build fraternity, community and celebrate the joy of life.

Somewhere down time and evolution the scenario changed somewhat. The drinker now likes to see alcohol as a solution to problems. For some others the ``wine shops'' have become a cash cow. For the rest it is nothing but a huge nuisance. There are an increasing number of newspaper reports about communities and institutions objecting to liquor shops and their locations. The complaints range from just being a nuisance to security risks.

The printed pages of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition Act stipulates that ``No shop shall be established in Municipal Corporations and Municipalities within a distance of 50 metres and in other areas 100 metres from any place of worship or educational institution: Provided that the distance restriction shall not apply in areas designated as ``Commercial'' or ``Industrial'' by the Development or Town Planning Authorities". It further requires that every shop be housed in a pucca building. ``On receipt of the application, the licensing authority shall satisfy himself in general after due enquiry that the local needs to justify the grant of the licence and that public interest shall not suffer by the grant of the licence applied for and that the privilege is not likely to be misused."

According to number telephonically ascertained from the Office of the Directorate of Excise, there are 870 IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor) retail-vending shops in Chennai. Newspapers report an addition of another 90 over the last two weeks. Whether every wine shop, which functions as a ``bar-attached'' facility, actually has a special licence to do that, only the licensing authority and the enforcing officers of the Excise Department and the Police will ever know. Irrespective, when totalled, that adds to a handsome number that makes it extremely convenient for us to stop on the way home or even to work to gulp down some liquor to get a quick high.

Along the very socially creamy and thickly peopled four-kilometre drive that I make twice a day, every day, from Alwarpet to Adyar I have a choice of nine wine shops, all of them except two, with functioning bars!

The bare Act also guarantees that ``anyone found intoxicated in public places and those who are not permitted to consume alcohol by law found intoxicated in any private place shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months or with a fine which may extend to one thousand Rupees". All of Chennai can mock that one!

Business in a wine shop begins as soon as it opens — which usually is rather early in the morning and it continues at an increasing pace till the shutters are reluctantly downed late in the night. With single-minded devotion, drinkers stop by to gulp from flimsy white plastic cups. Some buy sachets of water in a pretence of diluting it. The more posh ones on motorcycles seek anonymity in pretending to themselves that they are visiting the pharmacy to pick up stuff for the family. Usually they are the variety that choke on their drinks. The less said about the drinkers who come by car the better. The friendly neighbourhood sundal vendor makes music on his iron kadai -``Come unto me all ye drunks!''

The already narrow roads get further bottlenecked. White plastic cups litter the areas and roll away in the wind. Streets are instantly converted into urinals. Vehicles with inebriated drivers weave into the traffic hazardously. Drunken pedestrians wobble precariously in and out of the traffic. Others choose deep comatose sleep often in the comforts of their own vomit on the roadsides. So much for the act and its rhetoric about being found intoxicated in public places.

For reasons of maximising sales, the wine shops are being strategically located at points of highest traffic and in areas, which are (socio-economically) vulnerable and volatile.

The busy R. A. Puram junction had a distribution point for gas cylinders, which had the awkward habit of bursting. People objected and it was moved out. Instead it has become a wine shop, complete with the statutory warning that politely informs you that you are going to hell. Same difference, and we do not even realise it. Earlier it was an explosive problem, now it is an implosive one!

Wine shops are a compelling business proposition for its key stakeholders. For the licence, applications are invited from respectable citizens for a fee of Rs.500 and a security deposit of Rs.1,00,000 - a pittance compared to the bonanza the shop will rake in. Being a licensed and restricted commodity getting a licence is, believe me, a ``privilege'', and privileges usually cost. The word is (and, of course, we have no proof or evidence whatsoever) that there is necessarily a great deal of underhand dealings with much exchange of favours, which hugely benefit the powers that be.

For the Government, sale of alcohol (like its narcotic cousin tobacco) brings in huge amounts of much needed revenue. So everyone benefits except the drinker and the public at large who between them pay for all the costs and much, much more.

Wine shops continue to thrive. It is not just a lucrative business; we heavily subsidise it! It does not take any responsibility for any of the problems caused. Parking is not provided and the costs of illegal parking are borne by the community.

Toilets are not provided and our locality becomes a urinal. The sellers of alcohol take no responsibility for the alcohol related traffic accidents, injuries and deaths, not to mention other social problems. They internalise the profits and externalise the costs to us. True, people need to make money but at what cost and, more importantly, at whose cost. Why should we continuously allow our businesses, whether they are large industries or small wine shops, to pass on their costs to the community while they dearly hold on to the unearned profits?

The solution to the problem does not lie in banning alcohol or closing down the wine shops or, worse, in taking a moralistic stand against drinking. To address the problem we need to find out why people are drinking, and drinking hard at that, jeopardising their health, others lives, their livelihoods and their homes.

They are obviously not doing it for fun and enjoyment. Wine shops are some of the most un-fun places to be in. Anyone who has hung around in our local wine shops knows that there can be no discourse, sharing, fraternity, or fun (as in some traditional pubs and watering holes) when one is indulging in ``hit and run'' drinking: good old fashioned shooting back of liquor, trying to get as high as fast as possible at the lowest cost! If this is a symptom of a rather serious malaise, then the root causes need to be addressed to resolve the problem. The idea is not to close off the tap (and send it underground!) but to find out why the tap is being opened in the first place.

Maybe as a society we need to be allowed to get comfortable with alcohol so that we can relax with it and not treat it as an indecent indulgence to be done in secret and in the extreme. We need to demand dignified spaces that communities can live with, where people can see a glass of beer or whatever as a cup that actually cheers, promoting discourse, sharing and a sense of enjoyment, while providing reasonable revenue and profits to government and enterprise. We need to make sure that profits are made fairly and not at the cost of society.

Who knows, the public discourse promoted by convivial drinking spaces may even throw up some solutions and come up with other more sane ways for the Government to earn revenue?

ELIZABETH ROY

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