My first drink

Drinking alcohol is cool. At least this is what the youth of today think. It is supposed to be a sign of maturity and machismo. I was one of those teenagers who used to think the same. It was around one year after we joined college, when we started feeling like real grown ups. My friends and I started bunking classes to watch movies, flirt with girls, and generally hang out. We did everything together. At this point my conscience screams out, "Except walking into class!!"

We were all standing in the rain, in the bike park outside college, when we decided to taste alcohol. The five of us got on to three bikes and set out to buy the beer. On reaching the theka, all five of us marched into the shop to get our own beer. It was no one person's idea. And we all wanted to be in that theka to show our individual enthusiasm. We bought ourselves a bottle of beer each. Three of us rode the bikes, while the two pillions clutched their precious cargo. We went to our adda-- a dhaba next to Sangam theatre in Delhi. We ordered some snacks and some ice. We wanted to open the bottles immediately and down it as quick as possible. That moment was so precious for all of us. We then opened our bottles one-by-one and called it our entry into adulthood. We were losing our virginity.

All our excitement disappeared as we had our first sip of beer. It was worse than the bitterest medicine. But we couldn’t spit it out. After all we were all grown ups, and grown-ups don’t spit out beer. Sanchit, the wild child of our group, was the first in the race. He downed half of the bottle in seconds. The rest of us looked at him as if he was crazy. The beer had already started working on us. My head started spinning. We were all on top of the world. In fact we thought we ruled this world. No one would dare confront us. What an experience! We were true "MEN".

A few minutes later...

“Hey what are you doing Sanchit? Shit! How can you do this?” I thought. He puked. Right there. Sitting on his chair. He leaned to his left and threw up on the ground next to him. He then sat quietly till we left the dhaba. An hour later, another soldier fell-- Rohit. If Sanchit added two litres to the dhaba floor, then Rohit added a bucketful.

Now, the matter slipped out of our hands. Two of my friends were struggling to stand up. They were on the verge of fainting. So, we had to surrender, we took them to their homes and were scolded by their parents. On top of that, even our own parents yelled at us.

The next day at college, Sanchit and Rohit were the topic of discussion. The two of them absconded from college. The girls called them phattoo and we all laughed generously. While we made fun of these two, our seniors made fun of us. They didn’t let us forget that our friends got knocked out from a half a bottle of beer each.