Her 'high'-ness

After getting almost arrested at Heathrow airport for carrying twice the maximum allowable limit of cigarette boxes for my teenager cousin, I expected him to bow before me and kiss my feet. (Now don't give me a lecture on what a maha-papi act that was; I was at the Singpaore duty-free when he called, and the sheer length of the word 'Pleeeeeeeeeeeease apa pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?' was enough to make me go buy whatever he wanted.) Besides, he said he wouldn't smoke the whole thing himself, but would sell it to his friends, and I thought I should help my poor student bro get some gainful employment. Okay, enough of justifying. Even I am not convinced with my moronic arguments. Especially because I am totally anti-smoking. It was a stupid stupid act on my part, and I'd never do it again.

So he takes one puff and says, "Your Singapore... hmmm... Everything is very mild in your Singapore."

"Excuse me??" I retorted in anger and then suddenly realised I actually had no defence. And then I realised that I had.

"Dude, ever heard of Singapore laws?" I did my coyly-looks-at-her-nails act.

Yup, not mild. Not mild at all, my friend.

So yes, maybe the cigarettes in Singapore are mild and the alcohol is mild too. Just last weekend, I had a chance to reaffirm this.

After the first phase of the editorial training session for the new editors in the company, we seniors looked at the feedback forms and realised that it had been a success. So the four of us decided to celebrate. It was a Friday evening and we were close to Clarke Quay, so we decided to go to Cafe Iguana. Happy hour was on, and we ordered a pitcher of lime margarita, which promptly got over. So we ordered another pitcher of mango margarita and some nachos and chicken quesadillas. The food was served with habanero chilli, which I realised to my delight-first-horror-later, was the hottest chilli I'd ever had in my life. My mouth was on fire and water didn't seem to help. Even cubes of ice did not. The only thing that seemed to help was the sweet mango margarita. So I realised that it had been less than an hour and I had downed four and a half glasses of margarita. My colleagues were looking at me funny, expecting me to start behaving all drunk, but I felt fine.

"Are you fine?" One of them asked.

"I'm fine."

"Hmmm... so how often do you drink, Sayesha?" One of them asked me.

"Err... twice a year?"

Okay confession time. I'm not much of an alcohol person. Could be because my Dad is a teetotaller who drinks only milk, not even coffee or tea. And Mom too always looked at alcohol as "chih!" stuff. Could also be because the first alcoholic drink I was offered had been beer. YIKES. I took one whiff of it, and ran for the hills. The smell was so terrible it put me off alcohol for my entire university life. In fact, I had my first alcoholic drink at the age of 24. My friends in India refused to believe it. "Come on! You went to Singapore when you were 18! Surely you must have started drinking then?" Truth is - I didn't.

It was only in 2004, when I was sitting in a bar in Cambodia with a bunch of friends having the greatest holiday of my life, when one of them ordered me my first alcoholic drink - pina colada. Not bad, I thought. The realisation that all alcoholic drinks do not smell like beer was a happy one. But even then, I could tell that alcohol was not really my thing. After we got back to Singapore, I tried a few other kinds, but I was never really crazy about it. Even today, I feel much happier and 'higher' on pure orange juice. My friends think it's rather weird.

Earlier this year, when I was in the US, my sister was relieved to know that I had finally tasted my first sip of alcohol.

"Finally!" She said. "It took you 24 years to try it."

"Yeah!" I grinned proudly.

"That wasn't a compliment."

"Errr..."

"Okay listen, you HAVE to try the margarita at Chilis." She said when we made plans to have dinner there.

"Errr... Naah, I don't think Mom will like it if I drink in front of her." I said.

"Let's ask for permission then?" She said.

"Yup okay!"

So the obedient duo of the 29-year-old and the 26-year-old went to ask Mommy for permission to drink.

"Alcohol?" She said.

"Yeah."

"Strong wala? Are you gonna get drunk on that?"

"No, Mom, it's pretty mild. Besides, she won't have too much. I just want her to try it." My sis intervened.

"Okay." Mom agreed.

So I had a glass of the Chambord 1800 at Chilis, which I must say was phenomenal. After dinner, I did feel a bit 'strange', but I just sat in the car and slept through the drive home, so noone really knew what was up with me, except for "Poor girl must be really tired."

The next morning, I wondered if it was really true. If the same drink in the US was stronger than that in Singapore. Perhaps it was true - instead of wild things, Singapore has mild things.

Perhaps that was the reason why I was sitting there at Cafe Iguana, feeling perfectly fine in spite of the four and a half glasses of margarita. Unless the reason was the other one. The copious amounts of orange juice I drink which keep me on a perpetual high. The kind that no kind or amount of alcohol can compete with.

Arz kiya hai... dohri (doha+shayari)

Jo bewdi har pal talli, jaage ho ya soye
Saadhe chaar margarita se uska kya hoye?