charity begins at pub...

"When one is drunk, one tends to speak the truth" goes the age old cliché in the Boozers' Bible. Keeping aside the New Year resolutions for a while, Dindu and I were in this resto-pub last weekend. My limit is 60 ml. After that I start seeing things more vaguely clear. Dindu's limit is 180 ml, but his supernatural bird eye view becomes active as soon as the first drop of alcohol goes inside him. And then begins the conversation, where almost everything is discussed once again in the same old monotonous way - from marriage to monogamy, from racism to religion, from sex to sensex, from poverty to privatization, from girls to globalization - you name it.

Dindu: Macha! Why don't you order another large?

Me: No Thanks! I am done.

Dindu: You don't know.. A man is mortal only until his first kiss and second drink..

Me: Dae! I don't want to achieve half-nirvana. Perhaps I will cross one drink limit only when I am going to become fully immortal.. You know what I mean right.. he he he..

Gobhi Manchurian arrives; Dindu snatches the plate from waiter's hands, places two tiny pieces in my plate and starts eating the rest.

Dindu: I want to earn a lot of money and do some charity, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. I want to do something so that I am useful to at least four people around me.

Me: Don't worry man! You will be useful to four people. You, your wife and your two children. You will do a lot of charity.

Dindu: Dae! No kidding. I am serious. I really want to be useful.

Me: Ok man! No more drinks for you. Finish this and we are off.

It was the deepest corners of Dindu speaking - the desire to be useful. But just by desiring if one could get everything I would have dated Kangana Ranaut, Katrina Kaif, Jessica Alba, Kate Moss, Rachel Weisze etc etc (you name) by now.

...

(Sigh! I go into a reverie of one of these ethereal beauties sitting with me instead of the drunk-and-about-to-puke-his-brains-out-Tambi)

...

Most of people want to do charity. Some in even big way - Gates, Buffet likes. In my opinion these guys (Gates, Buffet) have already done a lot of charity by creating so many jobs and opportunities and by making things easy. What they are doing now, by giving away the wealth they have accumulated, is just the visible part of their charity.

Charity for most of the people means giving away the money. And mostly those people feel the urge for charity, who possess enough disposable income, which again depends on person's individual view of when his or her income crosses the disposable threshold. A person earning 8 lpa might not feel like charity, whereas a person with 3 lpa might consider doing it. Nothing bad about that as such, but it is difficult for me to digest the idea of giving away money to some ‘xyz’ foundation without knowing what they are going to do with it. I am ultra cynical. And I am always afraid that the collected money will be used by some people in buying tickets for watching a live India Australia match.

'Break the knees of a poor man, then give him crutches to walk' - This is the real definition of charity, as I look around. Society first makes the poor man and then searches for people to do charity to help the poor man out. Society first prepares the criminal, and then cries out to ban the capital punishment. I mean... give me a break.

May be it’s our Indian DNA. People have lived with monarchy for so many centuries, how democracy can suddenly become our culture in just sixty years. Democracy has never been our way of life until after 1947. Democracy was thrown on us Indians who were habitual of living as subjects of Emperors and Dynasties. May be that’s one of the reasons why still dynasties rule us – Gandhis, Nehrus, Scindias, Rajas… Duh! Or may be because after independence we blindly copied the architecture of government and economy from Soviet Union! I am not sure…

I just wonder how cultures become prominent in a society. Why don’t we throw the garbage in a bin instead of on the road? Why don’t we pay taxes? Why don’t we go the right way while driving? Why do we insist on hanging onto old useless customs? Well, one doesn’t have to answer them… just need to think... the answers may come for better…

Meanwhile, I dumped Dindu at his house and flew back to Hyderabad.

Next morning Dindu woke up, called me and said 'Dae! I gave the waiter a tip of 500 rupees! Why didn't you stop me a**h***?!?'

I said 'Relax machi! Just assume that it was charity for the poor man!'