OPINION - Alcohol poisoning, which can often be fatal, is quite common in India. The poor cannot afford branded alcohol, so they brew their own. After a hard day's work in the fields, they down a glass of the strong local bootleg brew known as hooch, before eating their spicy meal.
Too much of the hooch, which is often laced with chemicals to make it potent, can be fatal as happened to scores in Assam and Uttar Pradesh states of India in the past few weeks. About 250 people never got up the next morning after downing the poisonous hooch (“Scores die after downing ‘hooch’”, Daily News, February 12).
The older generation would remember that we also had our own brand of locally brewed alcohol. It was called "gaveen". To increase their profit, shebeen owners would mix branded alcohol with gaveen and sell it to the unwary. Cane spirit by itself is a strong drink. Mixed with gaveen, it could become a deadly drink, especially if you are not a hardened drinker. It was common for men to drink their liquor "neat". You were a "sissy" if you dashed your alcohol, but a "man" if you drank it "neat".
I remember in my young, wild days - my friends and I had a nasty experience with alcohol laced with this terrible local brew. We were knocked out for the night and some of my friends suffered with diarrhoea and sore stomachs the next day. Not much of men we were. Luckily, I escaped this dreadful experience.