Tequila or Somras ?

1. This post was originally intended as a comment I made to my nephew Tanmoy's post 'Tequilla Bottle' in his blog ' Ulysses in Utopia'. Though I posted the comment, I thought it could also be published as an independent post.  I may have made a few alterations here and there though.

   Well, you have mentioned Mohua which is a tribal favourite in places where Mohua trees grow. Once I spent a night at Ajodhya Pahar and I woke up in the morning with a ‘top, top’ sound in my ear coming from a distance. A short walk brought me to a tree, the Mohua tree’ I learnt, from which flowers were just falling off making that rhythmic sound. One or two santhal girls were collecting the flowers in a basket to take home for making the family brew.
   In tea areas in North Bengal and Assam, the labours brew ‘rice beer’ i.e a liquour fermented from rice.In the Dooars, it is known as Hadiya or hariya. I forget what it is called in Assam. If you travel along the highway from Jalpaiguri towards Assam, you may come across girls at roadsides at different places sitting with a Hadi and a few aluminium glasses selling the brew.
   In rural areas of Bengal, they ferment the juice from date palm (khejurer ras) and palm (tal).Tari, they call it, I think. And of course in the South they have the very popular tody which is made from coconut .

   In the towns and cities of Bengal,you will find Deshi Mader Dokan, shops selling various brands of country liquor.These are all Govt. licensed.You will find similar shops all over India as distinct from those selling India made Foreign Liquor,IMFL- beer,whiskeys etc. I don’t think our indigenous brews can really be marketed worldwide – unless in the the last forty years they have improved their standard. Though Saratchandra in the past and Sunil Gangopadhya and his group in their Khalasitolla days were quite enamoured by it.

   I should not leave out the ‘cholai’-the strong distilled brew which is generally sold in clandestine shops and is often adulterated with some other intoxicants but has a strong base among the poorer section of the working class.
   In fact, occasional reports of large scale deaths that we read are from consumption of such adulterated cholai or arak.
   What I want to say is that India has a multi-liquor diversity and the unity lies in the fact that drinking is as ancient as anything you can think of. If you go by Nirode Chowdhury, it might have been the cause of split between the Sura and Asura, Devas and Daityas. Somras is something you find in ancient texts and in his Brave New World, Aldous Huxley found it a necessary ingredient in the lives of the people he depicted.
    The social stigma associated with drinking is a very Bengali middle class thing.Though I should not say that drinking is widely prevalent among the Bengali middle class, a large section is not immune to its charm as the thriving businesses of the wine shops indicate. But they would rather keep it in their closet. and to that extent it may be another instance of our hypocrisy.