House Spirit

Drinking in India-Stories, Essays, Poems

In this one-of-a-kind anthology, Indrajit Hazra introduces you to booze jabberwocky in an essay brimming over with linguistic playfulness; Sidharth Bhatia writes about drinking in Hindi cinema—from ‘permit rooms’ and Prem Chopra’s close relationship with Vat 69, to Honey Singh and Deepika Padukone’s Cocktail, while Sandip Roy mulls over India’s enduring obsession with whisky—has anything changed? Gautam Bhatia’s haunting story about a father’s hidden alcoholism and Vijay Nambisan’s painfully honest account about being in rehab take one to the darker sides of drinking; while in a lighter vein, Jairaj Singh talks about drinking in 4S, the legendary bar in Delhi’s ‘Def Col’, Kanika Gahlaut is in confessional mode about her drinking days, and Manohar Shetty writes about quitting feni. Palash Mehrotra says ‘eff off, single malt snobs’ as he takes you on a tour of cheap whisky brands, and Soumya Bhattacharya tells you all about drinking in Prohibition Gujarat. Hang out in the country liquor bars of Colaba with poet Adil Jussawalla, drink at a Bangalore highway bar with Zac O’Yeah, or attend a party with the teetotalling Amit Chaudhuri. All this and more in a collection of thirty-one essays, stories and poems that you will savour to the last drop.