One should always be drunk.
There!
Hangs the line
commanding the patrons of that dim-lit bar, near the Seine, some place, sometime, not remembered but, if you really insist, in 2017 summer, when
they went from the middle-class Mumbai on a package- tour to Paris and Vienna, a family of four for exotic places, sight-seeing and—a bit of culture-hopping, unaware of history and contexts changing there…the man with the
huge belly pointed out the message, as the sole motto of living life in a city of masks, back home, ordering a glass of Vodka for him and demure wife—drink! It is not India! —and she willingly obliged, while the pampered
kids looked on, feasting on the beauty of the night unfolding slowly outside, the Happy Hours discount scrawled on the polished glass; the stars and glittering skyline and ferries, visible from behind the side-window of the bar, where once came Hemingway, as the hosts claimed but the tipsy guest did not get the reference, just smiled and nodded, thirsty for the repeat order; some immigrants shivering outside, in the wet cold, selling toys for the Chinese tourists and their families; frail sellers detached from the scene, eyes blank, smiles in place.
Get drunk! But with life!
An African-Arab shouts out, bit tipsy, while his swarthy friends and a white woman discuss poetry, in animated English, over shimmering drinks.
They clink glasses and laugh. The man shouts again, louder: Hey! Be drunk—with life only!
Quiet!
They admonish, looking at the bar filled with patrons, busy with conversations in many languages; each table, boisterous; eager hands, clutching their drinks in goblets, most precious things.
But the drunk persists, louder now: They cannot take away this right.
Enjoy the day or night!
Every second; never give up; keep on smiling, despite the pain,
because that spirit only, that drunken state will be the only way of challenging the status quo!
Stop you— Baudelaire! You are creating nuisance!
More glasses clink and his voice get drowned in that surreal setting,
mixing dreams, desires and aspirations, in a roomful of devotees of Bacchus, in a post-modern city, always looking out for new acolytes…
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—Sunil Sharma
Picture Nick Victor
Bio: Sunil Sharma A humble word-worshipper: catcher of elusive sounds, meanings, images.
Published 28 creative and critical books— joint and solo.
Winner, among others, of the Panorama Golden Globe Award-2023, and, Nissim Award for Excellence-2022 for the political novel Minotaur.
Poems included in the UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, 2015.
He is the managing editor of Setu bilingual journal (English) that has more than 5-million views so far:
Academic |Writer | Critic | Editor | Freelance Journalist | Reviewer | Literary Interviewer
Editor: Setu: http://www.setumag.com/p/setu-home.html
Website:https://sunil-sharma.com
Twitter:https://twitter.com/drsunilsharma
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Amazon-author link: https://www.amazon.com/author/sunilsharma
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