A seesaw battle over the last drink

DURING my posting in the eastern part of the country, where the sun sets around 5 pm, the bar would open at seven — for exactly an hour. That hour used to be blissful; the tiring moments of the day were talked about and the sorrows of being away from home were drowned over a drink.

One evening, the barman closed the bar at the designated hour and left, only to return within a minute to announce, “Sirs, station commander”. As five-six of us, sitting in easy chairs and sofas, sprang to our feet, the boss entered. In his thundering voice, he said, “Good evening, gentlemen. Nice to see that bar discipline is being maintained, shut at sharp eight! I am glad.”

Four of my colleagues, sitting on stools at the bar counter, stood up and said in unison, “Good evening, sir.” As he moved closer to the counter, he let out a gasp. He started counting: “One, two, three… eleven.” With a flick of his index finger, he asked the barman to leave the room. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to the row of 11 glasses lined up on the counter. No one spoke.

Finally, one of them muttered, “Last drink, sir”. The boss asked, “Eleven glasses for the four of you, and you call it the last drink?” He then started asking each one in turn: “How many drinks have you had?”

“Five small, sir,” said the first one. “Three large, sir” was the next answer, but it was the third answer that tested the station commander’s patience — “Only the barman can tell, sir.”

The officers’ nasha was over well before the station commander left the room. And from the next day, the orders were: “Last drink means last drink.” The situation lasted only three days before a ‘solution’ was found. While the orders remained in letter, they got drowned in spirit(s). The ingenious ones started having “too many drinks in the last drink.” Well, the peg was much larger than even the legendary Patiala peg and the glass had liquor only.

The station commander introduced a monthly monetary limit, whereby a person could consume liquor worth that much amount, with a clear message: “Watch out and control your drinks.” This directive was tackled by using the quota of non-drinking officers once their (tipplers) own got over.

The next instruction of the station commander was to check the bar books of casual drinkers after the 15th of the month. The heavy drinkers started using the casual ones’ bar book during the first 15 days every month!

When this practice was checked and stopped, two officers switched from costly whiskey to cheaper rum, thus being able to consume more pegs per day. A couple of them lured non-drinkers into their club and started consuming drinks served to them.

Before this move could be checkmated, the station commander got posted out. A non-drinker myself, I asked my room-mate what he would have done had the boss stayed on. Like a seasoned chess player, he said: “I would have procured liquor bottles from my batchmate posted in the nearby regiment!”