Let me criticize myself first. I spent one of the most fruitless day today. Pillion riding with Devendra Bhattaria proved to be largely fruitless. Spending in front of computer proved to be fruitless. Watching a British cinema in the evening proved to be fruitless. I am now regretting why I spent more than an hour carrying a glass full of wine and pretending that I was drinking that. What an hypocrisy on my part. Sorry. I owe an apology to myself. I am sorry. I will never do that again. I know I am not a drinker and I cannot be one. That is fine. No problem. I do not regret for that. I do not care at all. But I know I should not pretend that I drink. I will never do that again. I know many people pretend on so many aspects in such gatherings but I think I should not have pretended.
The wine party (let me say the social gathering) started in time, at 5:30 PM, an hour ahead of the scheduled screening of “28 Days Later” in Gopi Krishna Cinema hall this evening. (I did not like the movie and that added extra pressure to think that I really wasted my time there.) I went there pillion riding with Girish Giri, my colleague at Kantipur, and took a glass of wine upon his kind ’suggestion’. With the glass of wine in my hand, I tried to see as much faces as possible in that small crowd and a foreigner girl caught my attention. But I did not go near her (and she did not come to me.)
Anyway, let me come to the drink talk.
“So you don’t drink?” asked Prem Khanal, the business bureau chief at the Kathmandu Post, the other day.
“No.” I replied.
“Not at all?” he frowned at me.
“Okay, beer. A glass at a time in the interval of a month.” I tried to prove myself. “I think last time I drank was a month ago.”
He dismissed beer as a serious drink and wanted to now if I drank hard drinks.
“No,” I replied. “No. no. I mean I cannot drink that even if I want. That does not mean I want but I simply cannot. So let me put it this way. Hard drinks are simply not compatible to me. I am not compatible to hard drinks.” And I told him how I unknowingly drank gin in an embassy party thinking that as water and how I threw that out of my mouth within seconds.
Okay, Prem daju seemed to be convinced by my arguments and points. But he was ready for the next big question.
“Do you have girlfriend?” he asked.
My answer was as honest as possible because I didn’t feel like lying to Prem Khanal. “No,” I said.
“So,” Prem thought for a few seconds before giving me a suggestion. “So, why don’t you go there and do dhyaan. You should replace that man.” He was referring to a controversial young yogi in southern Nepal who is attracting a lot of media attention these days because many people think he is the next Buddha. LOL.
You don’t drink, you don’t have a girlfriend. You should be a yogi instead of a reporter. I know he wasn’t serious but let me say that the question of girlfriend has become a matter of “prestige” (I hate using that term here.) The peer pressure is tremendous. Probably a friend of mine in Kantipur Complex (I don’t want to name him here because I am sure he doesn’t like that) knows it better. He is a failed lover and is trying to find a suitable woman for marriage. He likes not to talk about this but I can understand his eagerness.
Anyway, I am still with my old argument that to be without girlfriend means you enjoy a kind of freedom. I am enjoying that right now. No tension of being late in the date. No tension of finding suitable dating spot. No tension of making your girlfriend happy all the time. I think I told Prem Dhakal these benefits of being single.
Okay, back to that glass of wine. I know I was pretending. I pretended of shipping the wine several time. But I knew I was not drinking. So after holding the glass for about half an hour, I quietly went to a nearby table and left the glass there. I think I drank about 20 ml.
Dinesh Wagle on Nepali Society 