All my student life I never had friends who boozed, don't know whether it was a good thing or I was missing a lot of stuffs. So my knowledge of alcohol was all from millions of movies that I watched. Its a rare thing that hailing from Bengaluru the pub city, or the beer city, to have not tasted alcohol all my life. It wasn't my choice, it actually never happened. Still remember the statement my co-worker had made "U from Bangalore & U don't drink, some religious problems". I had no answers when some asked why I didn't drink, nor was it a religious concern , as it was never "part of deal" my caste. I always give a simple answer I don't know. But among friends at work I was called the good guy because I didn't drink, also would be the legal driver when every one else were drunk. So was kind of enjoying the good guy status.
When it comes to alcohol, I realized that I do have 2 voices in my head which give me 2 totally orthogonal views. One says
"never come close to alcohol dude, drink orange juice instead " other says
"give it a try, be a man; its not a sin if you drink, you only live once blah blah...".
Some how I kept listening to the former until one fine day "be a man" thing actually struck me. For the first time I sipped red wine, it was bitter, reminded me of the Iron flavored acid rain that I had tasted in Bhadravati (Iron and Steel city).One sip and already some many thoughts lingering in my mind, I looked at the wine glass, the color looked so nice and serene, expected it be a lot sweeter, logically speaking there are no takers for bad food, but it was different in this case. I still wonder how Whiskey or Brandy might taste, if wine was considered to be mild.
While I was struggling for the next 1 hr to finish this thing, my friend came gave me a cheer "way to go Manish, be a man", it was now more a ego question than any thing else, finally I finished my first glass of wine. After dinner I have classic coke, and dam it tasted so good, it was like an anti dote for the wine. Then I realized why alcohol is called acquired taste, you need to drink a number of times to like it. On six to seven occasions,on different locations I drank both white and red wine struggled each time. Tried wine with coke, wine with salt, wine with sugar, wine with orange juice. None of them tasted better than apple cedar or cranberry juice, or even coke. To acquire the taste of alcohol one needs to drink it more often, which actually makes you a drinker. Its like the rail road paradox.
My take is better to be safe y not drinking rather than be sorry after drinking. Post your view on alcohol.
