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House Spirit: Drinking in India-Stories, Essays, Poems
In this one-of-a-kind anthology, Indrajit Hazra introduces you to booze jabberwocky in an essay brimming over with linguistic playfulness; Sidharth Bhatia writes about drinking in Hindi cinema—from ‘permit rooms’ and Prem Chopra’s close relationship with Vat 69, to Honey Singh and Deepika Padukone’s Cocktail, while Sandip Roy mulls over India’s enduring obsession with whisky—has anything changed? Gautam Bhatia’s haunting story about a father’s hidden alcoholism and Vijay Nambisan’s painfully honest account about being in rehab take one to the darker sides of drinking; while in a lighter vein, Jairaj Singh talks about drinking in 4S, the legendary bar in Delhi’s ‘Def Col’, Kanika Gahlaut is in confessional mode about her drinking days, and Manohar Shetty writes about quitting feni. Palash Mehrotra says ‘eff off, single malt snobs’ as he takes you on a tour of cheap whisky brands, and Soumya Bhattacharya tells you all about drinking in Prohibition Gujarat. Hang out in the country liquor bars of Colaba with poet Adil Jussawalla, drink at a Bangalore highway bar with Zac O’Yeah, or attend a party with the teetotalling Amit Chaudhuri. All this and more in a collection of thirty-one essays, stories and poems that you will savour to the last drop.
290 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 10, 2016
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December 21, 2016Our attitude to drinking is the same as it is to sex. We don’t do it. But , like sex, we do it all the time. And some states, it seems, do it more than others.”
— The introduction to the book by Palash Krishna Mehrotra.
In a bold one of its kind anthology of stories, essays and poems, Mehrotra, the editor of House Spirit: Drinking In India brings out the essence of drinking in India with 33 contributions from 27 writers.
Published by The Speaking Tiger, the stories are a blend of all that is left unsaid when it comes to the topic of drinking.
It’s amazing how a person remembers in all vivid details the night spent in the beloved arms of alcohol, be it when social awkwardness is taken care of and strangers turn into best friends or when the weather always turns romantic under its influence. We remember the night, yet forget the bottle that made it happen.
So we finally have this anthology on the culture of drinking in India which has taken upon itself the task of doing right by the bottle. This is a fine collection of selected short stories by writers like Gautam Bhatia, Indrajit Hazra, Jeet Thayil, Anjum Hasan, Anup Kutty, Zac O’Yeah; poems by Manohar Shetty, Vijay Nambisan; and essays by Adil Jussawalla, Abhinav Kumar, Sidharth Bhatia, Kanika Gahlaut.
It also includes seasoned as well as new writers who have collaborated to summarise the various facets of our relationship with alcohol consumption. From the first sip to sloshed nights, from pubs to thekas, from the elitist party drinking to the good old whisky and water with peanuts to go, House Spirit brings to you the essence of drinking in India.
The stories talk about the good buzz when you begin but eventually also comes the part where alcohol and hangover bring to the fore the inevitable thoughts you wish to escape from. The book has a refreshing take on drinking from the common man’s perspective.
It would remind some readers about the nervousness when they tried their first sip. More precisely, how awful it was in terms of taste. But sure, they gulped it down probably along with their pride because they wanted to look ‘macho’ in front of their peers; the promise of sinful delight during school days, as Gautam Bhatia calls it in Aristocrat.
Or as written in Conduct Unbecoming by Manohar Shetty, an owner of a prominent restaurant-bar by the Bombay Stock Exchange, was given this sound advice by a veteran stockbroker: “Both ways you win: If we make a windfall we come here to celebrate; if we lose we come here to drown our sorrows.”
This basically means you don’t need a reason to drink to, be it a thing of celebration or good old depression. Alcohol will always be the perfect companion for it.
Anjum Hasan’s Hanging On Like Death turns out to be quite the tear jerker with a sublime narration. The uncharacteristic twist in the end will have you brooding into the wee hours into the night. Jeet Thayil of Narcoplis fame in his short story Delirium shows us how in just a span of 24 hours one can go from having the best day ever to feeling like the scum of the earth. So much so that one actually thanks God for just falling asleep in one’s bed.
The fact remains that alcohol also functions as a social lube. Where it helps some to lose inhibitions under the garb of alcohol, it also works for some on the flipside, as Amit Chaudhuri writes in Epilogue: Some Pathologies, about being a non-drinker. That sheds light upon how you automatically become an outcast and are treated with suspicion if you don’t drink. Worse, if you don’t cite legit reasons for not drinking at all. In Permit Room, Sidharth Bhatia writes about drinking in Bollywood. A hero with a Muslim name and a heroine with a glass of wine are still an oddity for the audience and Bhatia examines why the latter is an eyesore.
Some of the pieces are honest and blunt in nature. Vijay Nambisan’s Rehab Diary is a terrifying account where he talks about the ugly side of what goes on in the name of Rehabilitation Centres. Broken egos, broken souls. Some worthy enough of living in that hell and some betrayed by kin. Where ‘supposed’ alcoholics are being tricked into rehab.
Mehrotra has managed a substantial balance of both established as well as novice writers in the collection, which presents diverse perspectives around a common passion, as well as around the extent some go to in order to pursue the passion. Personal accounts, fiction, sobering tales and fondly remembered anecdotes of sneaking alcohol out from home and tales of well marked days on the calendar when finding booze turns into treasure hunts.
For what it stands, drinking has been celebrated in India, bringing life to a party quicker than any other social glue known. We glorify it but forget the humble whisky bottle that made it happen. This book is a sombre attempt where neither the alcoholic is ridiculed nor the drinking glamourised. It turns out to be an impressive collection and is the perfect opportunity for confessions and celebrations all shared over the perfect bottle of wine.
— The introduction to the book by Palash Krishna Mehrotra.
In a bold one of its kind anthology of stories, essays and poems, Mehrotra, the editor of House Spirit: Drinking In India brings out the essence of drinking in India with 33 contributions from 27 writers.
Published by The Speaking Tiger, the stories are a blend of all that is left unsaid when it comes to the topic of drinking.
It’s amazing how a person remembers in all vivid details the night spent in the beloved arms of alcohol, be it when social awkwardness is taken care of and strangers turn into best friends or when the weather always turns romantic under its influence. We remember the night, yet forget the bottle that made it happen.
So we finally have this anthology on the culture of drinking in India which has taken upon itself the task of doing right by the bottle. This is a fine collection of selected short stories by writers like Gautam Bhatia, Indrajit Hazra, Jeet Thayil, Anjum Hasan, Anup Kutty, Zac O’Yeah; poems by Manohar Shetty, Vijay Nambisan; and essays by Adil Jussawalla, Abhinav Kumar, Sidharth Bhatia, Kanika Gahlaut.
It also includes seasoned as well as new writers who have collaborated to summarise the various facets of our relationship with alcohol consumption. From the first sip to sloshed nights, from pubs to thekas, from the elitist party drinking to the good old whisky and water with peanuts to go, House Spirit brings to you the essence of drinking in India.
The stories talk about the good buzz when you begin but eventually also comes the part where alcohol and hangover bring to the fore the inevitable thoughts you wish to escape from. The book has a refreshing take on drinking from the common man’s perspective.
It would remind some readers about the nervousness when they tried their first sip. More precisely, how awful it was in terms of taste. But sure, they gulped it down probably along with their pride because they wanted to look ‘macho’ in front of their peers; the promise of sinful delight during school days, as Gautam Bhatia calls it in Aristocrat.
Or as written in Conduct Unbecoming by Manohar Shetty, an owner of a prominent restaurant-bar by the Bombay Stock Exchange, was given this sound advice by a veteran stockbroker: “Both ways you win: If we make a windfall we come here to celebrate; if we lose we come here to drown our sorrows.”
This basically means you don’t need a reason to drink to, be it a thing of celebration or good old depression. Alcohol will always be the perfect companion for it.
Anjum Hasan’s Hanging On Like Death turns out to be quite the tear jerker with a sublime narration. The uncharacteristic twist in the end will have you brooding into the wee hours into the night. Jeet Thayil of Narcoplis fame in his short story Delirium shows us how in just a span of 24 hours one can go from having the best day ever to feeling like the scum of the earth. So much so that one actually thanks God for just falling asleep in one’s bed.
The fact remains that alcohol also functions as a social lube. Where it helps some to lose inhibitions under the garb of alcohol, it also works for some on the flipside, as Amit Chaudhuri writes in Epilogue: Some Pathologies, about being a non-drinker. That sheds light upon how you automatically become an outcast and are treated with suspicion if you don’t drink. Worse, if you don’t cite legit reasons for not drinking at all. In Permit Room, Sidharth Bhatia writes about drinking in Bollywood. A hero with a Muslim name and a heroine with a glass of wine are still an oddity for the audience and Bhatia examines why the latter is an eyesore.
Some of the pieces are honest and blunt in nature. Vijay Nambisan’s Rehab Diary is a terrifying account where he talks about the ugly side of what goes on in the name of Rehabilitation Centres. Broken egos, broken souls. Some worthy enough of living in that hell and some betrayed by kin. Where ‘supposed’ alcoholics are being tricked into rehab.
Mehrotra has managed a substantial balance of both established as well as novice writers in the collection, which presents diverse perspectives around a common passion, as well as around the extent some go to in order to pursue the passion. Personal accounts, fiction, sobering tales and fondly remembered anecdotes of sneaking alcohol out from home and tales of well marked days on the calendar when finding booze turns into treasure hunts.
For what it stands, drinking has been celebrated in India, bringing life to a party quicker than any other social glue known. We glorify it but forget the humble whisky bottle that made it happen. This book is a sombre attempt where neither the alcoholic is ridiculed nor the drinking glamourised. It turns out to be an impressive collection and is the perfect opportunity for confessions and celebrations all shared over the perfect bottle of wine.
December 9, 2024
A Toast to Life Under the Influence
Drinking in the northern part of India, where I have spent the past decade of my life, is a national sport. You drink with friends and acquaintances at house parties, you drink with journalists you’ve met for the first time over heated debates at rundown bars, you absolutely must drink at weddings, and you drink both to celebrate and mourn. I was once invited to a funeral dinner where the good late sir’s favourite alcoholic beverage was part of the menu. Naturally, a book as breezy and compulsively readable as House Spirit appealed to me instantly.
The idea is simple – a bunch of writers, mostly men, come together to write a series of pieces on the act of drinking. Memories are allowed to collide and haunt; stories, poems, and essays arranged in no particular order are laid out with immense candour, wit and heart, but never a hint of judgement. Sometimes the dam breaks, sometimes the reader smiles for the rest of the day after finishing a piece. The mood seamlessly veers from sardonic humour to foreboding and gloom. Like it happens in my favourite poem in the book, Manohar Shetty’s “Ten Feet Tall” that has the lines –
I know how it felt to be ten feet tall,
Lurching about like a leaning,
Beaming Tower of Pisa. Now sober,
I remain mostly quiet,
Content with a lime and soda,
And then the same poem ends with –
I know how it felt to be ten feet tall
And to wake up crunched into a doll,
My head unscrewed from my neck,
My fingers digging and clawing myself
Out from a ditch ten feet tall.
The shift in tone is a staggering achievement.
You don’t have to be an alcoholic, I am not and I have been trying to convince everyone for some years now, to savour and adore the writing here. The list of authors contributing in this volume – from Jeet Thayil, Siddharth Chowdhury, Anjum Hasan to Adil Jussawalla, Mayank Shekhar, and Amit Chaudhuri among other popular names – is delectable enough for any reader to take a shot at it. Pun unintended. Even better would be if you gather all your friends on a Friday evening and take turns to read out some of the pieces. Like drinking, reading can also be a social practice sometimes. Make sure it’s a BYOB party though: Bring Your Own Books. Writers can do with all the love, but they need copies to sell too!
Drinking in the northern part of India, where I have spent the past decade of my life, is a national sport. You drink with friends and acquaintances at house parties, you drink with journalists you’ve met for the first time over heated debates at rundown bars, you absolutely must drink at weddings, and you drink both to celebrate and mourn. I was once invited to a funeral dinner where the good late sir’s favourite alcoholic beverage was part of the menu. Naturally, a book as breezy and compulsively readable as House Spirit appealed to me instantly.
The idea is simple – a bunch of writers, mostly men, come together to write a series of pieces on the act of drinking. Memories are allowed to collide and haunt; stories, poems, and essays arranged in no particular order are laid out with immense candour, wit and heart, but never a hint of judgement. Sometimes the dam breaks, sometimes the reader smiles for the rest of the day after finishing a piece. The mood seamlessly veers from sardonic humour to foreboding and gloom. Like it happens in my favourite poem in the book, Manohar Shetty’s “Ten Feet Tall” that has the lines –
I know how it felt to be ten feet tall,
Lurching about like a leaning,
Beaming Tower of Pisa. Now sober,
I remain mostly quiet,
Content with a lime and soda,
And then the same poem ends with –
I know how it felt to be ten feet tall
And to wake up crunched into a doll,
My head unscrewed from my neck,
My fingers digging and clawing myself
Out from a ditch ten feet tall.
The shift in tone is a staggering achievement.
You don’t have to be an alcoholic, I am not and I have been trying to convince everyone for some years now, to savour and adore the writing here. The list of authors contributing in this volume – from Jeet Thayil, Siddharth Chowdhury, Anjum Hasan to Adil Jussawalla, Mayank Shekhar, and Amit Chaudhuri among other popular names – is delectable enough for any reader to take a shot at it. Pun unintended. Even better would be if you gather all your friends on a Friday evening and take turns to read out some of the pieces. Like drinking, reading can also be a social practice sometimes. Make sure it’s a BYOB party though: Bring Your Own Books. Writers can do with all the love, but they need copies to sell too!
April 20, 2018
House Spirit
Edited by Palash Krishna Mehrotra
Speaking Tiger Books
Rs 399/
A long time ago, when I was rehearsing a play I bravely decided to go for a drink post rehearsal. A male friend had a battered old Ambassador and it chugged us bravely to a bar off Park Circus. Rekha’s I was told, was the name and the dim green walls echoed with a low buzz of conversation. Later I discovered that Rekha was for hard-core alkies and the haze of alcohol that hung over the room was supposed to stun non-drinkers at fifty paces. Another post play session led to drinking in a car in an alleyway where the streetlights glinted on faceted glass. It was probably rum again but I was convinced it was hooch and had a frisson of pleasure at losing my alcohol virginity.
Which is where Palash Krishna Mehrotra’s House Spirit comes in. A spirited collection of stories, essays and poems that cover all aspects of Indian drinking that most people can think of and a few that they can’t. For example a story about a father who forces his son to glug beer till the bile runs down the drain as punishment for raiding a schoolfriend’s father’s bar. Jeet Thayli dashes a tale about a hard drinking artist who works round the glass. Throughout, People die to drink and people die of drink, though they have been doing it since time immemorial and Henry Vivian Derozio proves it in his contribution.
The point, the editor says is that cops think drink is associated with looj characters which is possibly why states go off the rails by declaring prohibition. Indian inhibitions about drinking and a hundred and one taboos get in the way, even though only 32% of India actually drinks. Respectable middle class women were shown drinking for the first time in the movie Vicky Donor, which says a lot on the subject. Many of the stories do consist of drink and vomit and might have the anti-alcohol lobby nodding wisely but then that is in the spirit of things.
There are stories about children’s confrontations with alcohol, getting drunk to go out dancing or to confront a three bottle diplomacy issue. The stories range from the sleazy to the sensitive with poetry to match. However, my personal favourite was the essay section which has a rich, informative selection.
Drinking has its own measures. Sumantra Banerjee writes about history and alcohol and how the first bar owner in Calcutta was a Eurasian woman who set up shop in the 1700’s – though it is surprising to find a bar called Trinka in the middle of all this. Someone’s Park Street info is a little imperfect. Sandip Roy contributes an essay on India’s whisky drinking habits – in case you didn’t guess, Satyajit Ray is like smooth malt when compared to Ghatak’s intense cheap whisky burn. There are tales of Toddy shops in Kerala and how the best toddy is to be found at 11 in the morning when it is fresh and sweet. And yes, there is an essay on drinking in a dry state – namely Ahmedabad.
In a time of prohibition this is certainly a book that might send several government pegs bottoms up, but in the climate of things it is apt and deserves a toast.
Edited by Palash Krishna Mehrotra
Speaking Tiger Books
Rs 399/
A long time ago, when I was rehearsing a play I bravely decided to go for a drink post rehearsal. A male friend had a battered old Ambassador and it chugged us bravely to a bar off Park Circus. Rekha’s I was told, was the name and the dim green walls echoed with a low buzz of conversation. Later I discovered that Rekha was for hard-core alkies and the haze of alcohol that hung over the room was supposed to stun non-drinkers at fifty paces. Another post play session led to drinking in a car in an alleyway where the streetlights glinted on faceted glass. It was probably rum again but I was convinced it was hooch and had a frisson of pleasure at losing my alcohol virginity.
Which is where Palash Krishna Mehrotra’s House Spirit comes in. A spirited collection of stories, essays and poems that cover all aspects of Indian drinking that most people can think of and a few that they can’t. For example a story about a father who forces his son to glug beer till the bile runs down the drain as punishment for raiding a schoolfriend’s father’s bar. Jeet Thayli dashes a tale about a hard drinking artist who works round the glass. Throughout, People die to drink and people die of drink, though they have been doing it since time immemorial and Henry Vivian Derozio proves it in his contribution.
The point, the editor says is that cops think drink is associated with looj characters which is possibly why states go off the rails by declaring prohibition. Indian inhibitions about drinking and a hundred and one taboos get in the way, even though only 32% of India actually drinks. Respectable middle class women were shown drinking for the first time in the movie Vicky Donor, which says a lot on the subject. Many of the stories do consist of drink and vomit and might have the anti-alcohol lobby nodding wisely but then that is in the spirit of things.
There are stories about children’s confrontations with alcohol, getting drunk to go out dancing or to confront a three bottle diplomacy issue. The stories range from the sleazy to the sensitive with poetry to match. However, my personal favourite was the essay section which has a rich, informative selection.
Drinking has its own measures. Sumantra Banerjee writes about history and alcohol and how the first bar owner in Calcutta was a Eurasian woman who set up shop in the 1700’s – though it is surprising to find a bar called Trinka in the middle of all this. Someone’s Park Street info is a little imperfect. Sandip Roy contributes an essay on India’s whisky drinking habits – in case you didn’t guess, Satyajit Ray is like smooth malt when compared to Ghatak’s intense cheap whisky burn. There are tales of Toddy shops in Kerala and how the best toddy is to be found at 11 in the morning when it is fresh and sweet. And yes, there is an essay on drinking in a dry state – namely Ahmedabad.
In a time of prohibition this is certainly a book that might send several government pegs bottoms up, but in the climate of things it is apt and deserves a toast.
July 31, 2017
A great collection of memoirs, essays and experiences in different forms written by various poets, authors, writers of all sorts including Jeet Thayil and Manohar Shetty. Nice gift for people who enjoy a tipple.
July 11, 2018
It's a anthologies of booze moments of different people. Must read for those who want to rejuvenate booze memories.
November 5, 2024
Very interesting premise let down by very poor execution and bad bad writing.
December 31, 2016
Delightful anthology of short stories( both fictional and autobiographical), poems and essays with all centered on the topic of drinks and drinking habits in India. Good light read
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews