Molestation on New Year's Eve

News came out about molestation of girls on New Year's Eve in certain cities in India which made ripples in media, social or otherwise. As every Faci-zen (Facebook Citizen) has an opinion about everything from Rocket science to Igneous Rocks, I didn't want to be the one left behind. So here is my take on this.

In our Metropolitan cities we have two Indias which mutually coexist side by side - one modern and liberal, the other misogynistic and voyeuristic kind. Both have this unwritten rule of sticking to their own territories. But on occasions, this thin viscous line of separation evaporates in the heat of the moment, encroaching into other's private territory.

This happens when both cultures clash, the cusp can be a large gatherings like New Year's eve. A la the warm and cold fronts clash across Jet stream causing weather phenomena like Tornadoes, such cultural clashes cause social tremors. The infamous Nirbhaya rape in Delhi and many more recent incidents are results of a milieu sitting on a gunpowder keg. All it takes someone light a matchstick to ignite it.

Constitution provides us freedom to hold peaceful gatherings. Yet freedom come with a price, it is never totally free, not even in America which boasts itself as the land of freedom. Let me narrate this story narrated to me by a friend of mine which pretty much tells the story - When copies of books like "One quarter of hour in night @ call center" and of hundreds of such titles mushrooming, the authors of such masterpieces being decorated with Padma Awards, such incidents would be very common in future. The other day, while with my wife and son, I witnessed a boy and a girl indulged in serious love making in broad day light and their two wheeler was acting like a bed ! We could not look and talk to our son for rest of the time !

For those have nots, who don't get such an opportunity in real life, do get a voyeuristic, vicarious pleasure watching these scenes. For them the sight of vociferous Damsels in midnight's crowd in darkness is a God sent opportunity to grab, so they grope it.
 
One can't clap using one hand. It always works both ways, so both moral and regular policing can help. By moral policing, I am not suggesting sermons by sundry Netas (Leaders) or Gurus. We should look at Singapore, which applies a carrot and stick policy. Carrot - Ethical values infused in their educational system, some guided by our eminent Odia writer Manoj Das as cultural consultant to the Citi-state. Charity begins at home, the parents and elders should cultivate ethics in their young minds.

Stick - Fear of lashes as the DANDA (stick) works wonder, where logic fails. Once during early 90s, the Singaporean authorities went on to lash an American tourist who broke the law of the land, in spite of the Superpower exhaustively exerting its diplomatic might to prevent it. Singapore doesn't have this concept of sparing someone, because that someone is someone's SALA KA MAMA KA BHATIJA (nephew of my Uncle's brothers-in-law). They went ahead and implemented the sentence. Our DANDA is no less effective than their lashes. If implemented without fear or favor, can yield awesome results.

Here goes the lesser known Odia Adage,

MADA KHIA MAHADEVA
MADA KHAILA BARA DABA, 

transliterated...

Thrashing prone Lord Mahadev
Grants boon, if he gets thrashed
For only thrashing he obeys.

The fearless Lord Mahedev once granted boon to a demon impressed by his penance only to be severely thrashed by the later. As we say in Odia, MADA EKA AMOGHA ASTRA (Thrashing is an effective weapon). Nothing works like DANDA therapy, which can work wonders. Legendary writer Khushwant Singh famously mentioned that during internal Emergency imposed from 1975-1977, efficiency in government and public sector services increased manifold. It yet vindicated that we Indians respect rods more than democracy. Not suggesting a Saudi style moral policing, but Prevention in the form of practising certain discretion in public is always better than cure in the form of DANDA therapy. Otherwise, it will take someone to strike a matchstick in a room filled with inflammable gas to initiate the next firestorm, which is waiting to happen.

Visit to Jagannath temple on New Year's Eve

 On New Year's Day the world famous Sri Jagannath temple in Puri in Odisha is kept open for almost all night as hundreds of thousands thronged the temple to visit the ARADHYA DEVATA (The most propitiated GOD) of all Odias across the world. It has become quite fashionable these days to visit temples on First Day of January - which ironically follows the Gregorian Calendar rather than the Hindu Lunar Calendar. Many of these visitors who are the first ones to be critical of the New Year's Day being celebrated in India on Gregorian New Year are also the first ones in the rat race to reach the temple. Define hypocrisy !!!

Not long ago, on one fine New Year's Day morning in India, I was trying to cross the Puri bound road close to our home in Bhubaneswar. I was surprised to see abnormally high traffic on a normal day, a rush almost similar to what you would see on a day of some major festival, like the famous RATH YATRA (Car festival) in Puri. While trying to cross the road, I had to tip toe my way, swaying hip, waving, clenching my hands like an eunuch at the approaching traffic of vehicles big and small zeroing on me, blaring their cacophonic horn in unison at the irritating pedestrian in me obstructing their path. 

As there were no Zebra crossing, it took 5 minutes of exhibiting my ass swinging skills like an Odishi dancer to cross a 25 feet wide road. Road crossing is an art in Odisha and one needs to be a trapeze artist to cross roads at the crossroads of Bhubaneswar. That day I went above and beyond my normal hip swaying which would have made any danseuse proud.

After managing to reach home in single piece I asked my father the reason behind such an unusual rush on an usual day. He said, it has become fashionable now-a-days to do a "JAGANNATH DARSHAN" (take a peek at Lord) on New Year's Day at His abode in Puri. Like a dip in river Ganga, they trust CHAKADOLA (Circular eyelid, another name of Sri Jagannath) with His ever pervading look will purify them off their dirt accumulated over time like Aqua guard does to crude water. 

It explains why you would see many bloody, bleary eyed folks, still nursing hangover from previous night's New year's eve Bacchanalian jamborees and after dumping their last year's shit stumbling their way up the "BAISI PAHANCHA" (the legendary 22 step entrance into the temple) leading to Lord's abode. Many of them I know are prolific slimy, corrupt characters, congenial liars, champion womanizers and cheats of the highest order, who are known to religiously make this trip on New year's day to His temple and involve themselves in temple matters. I am now reminded of the Odia proverb - "ATI BHAKTI CHORA RA KAKHYANA", "too much of devotion id sign of a scoundrel". Reminded of yet another Hindi proverb which aptly describes such folks - "SOU CHUHA MAARNE KI BAAD BILLI HAZ KARNE CHALI" (After killing 100 mice the cat went on Pilgrimage). 

Constipated with sins, they hope that the next 364 days (365 days if it is a Leap Year) will go as smooth as whistle, as the morning bowel movement post a dinner of RUTI (Chappati) and DALMA (boiled mixed of fiber rich lentils and vegetables), a staple Odia food. They think their accumulated sins will be reset to zero after entering Jagannath temple on New Year's Day which is display of ultimate hypocrisy. But they forget one thing - "CHAKA AKHI SABU DEKHUCHI" (Lord Jagannath is watching everything).

We have this popular Odia Adage - "BAARA BARSA RA TAPASYA SUKHUA PODA RE JIBA", transliterated, "Twelve years of penance will be swept away by consuming broiled dry fish". It means, all the great efforts and perseverance for a long period of time can go wrong by a single stroke of stupid act. Reverse this theorem - A trip to the abode of Lord Jagannath on the first day of the year guarantees buying peace and tranquility for the rest of the year, erasing off the sins in one stroke, a la the wiper of a car swishes away all the dust accumulated in summer after fresh monsoon rains. May KAALIA (as Lord Jagannath is known for his Amber complexion) bless them for the next 364 days, until their must visit yet again on January 1, 2027.

Happy New Year 2026

 Year 2025 paves way to the year 2026 - a New Year we perpetually wish to be better than the previous one. The passing away year wasn't unique like a leap year, but important to us in many ways.

While stepping into the New Year of 2026, thousands of Nostadamus, Baba Vanga and Malika predictions from our ubiquitous Whatsapp University are circulating on social media. Yet we don't know for sure what lies ahead of us and what's in store for us next year in an age of unpredictability. No one predicted Covid Pandemic 6 years ago as we stepped into 2020, something which came with cataclysmic events associated with it.

As the old man 2025 bends his spine, bows forward extending his hand to open the door to welcome the New Year, it is now time for some retrospection. The passing year 2026 will be forever be remembered for several reasons. The Coronavirus pandemic which was a scourge for past several years is now passe. Economic uncertainties and wars at hotspots of the world still continue. 

A mixed year for India in Cricket, a game which is arguably a religion in India, but in America Cricket is known as an insect emitting a shrill sound. The game of Cricket is a great unifying factor in India, a nation of 1.4 billion. The English say "God save the Queen", the Americans say "God Bless America". I say 'God bless Cricket". Arguably our national passion, the game of Cricket, unites every Indian from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Bengal to Baroda. When India plays Cricket, especially against Pakistan, we feels ourselves as an Indian rather than a Punjabi, Tamil, Marathi or Odia.

A la getting rid off old cloths for the new ones and the soul moving from one body to another as famously extolled by our Hindu God Sri Krishna in BHAGWAT GITA, our Hindu Scriptue, year 2026 will be reborn yet again at midnight tonight as the soul of 2025 passes away. The year dawns with the cherubic smile of a newborn, as another number is added to its age in the form of New Year. But hardly anything else ever changes with the arrival of the New Year. For me the mundane life trudges ahead as the same shit, different day - with different color and texture. Hardly anything worthwhile difference occurs, the status quo is maintained more or less.

The antonym of "Happy New Year" is "Unhappy Old Year". Year 2025 was pretty close to that for me due to various reasons. I lost a few close friends and relatives who passed away to a different realm. This year came and went with a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly, with additional baggage of  memories gently rolling into next year. Made new friends, revived old ones and lost a few near and dear ones once and for all. I may sound nihilist, yet the year comes with this stark reminder to me - life goes downhill from here, tasks become uphill and years are numbered before we go over the hill. 

I do not make any New Year's resolution as can't keep them. Resolutions like promises are made to be broken. I simply roll over to the year ahead of me. We may forget history but we repeat it year after year, similar to this starting stanza of Kishore Kumar's song :

EK RUUT AYE, EK RUUT JAYE PHIR,
MOUSAM BADLENA, BADLE NASEEB.

"One season comes and another goes,
Seasons don't change, fate does". 

To me, almost all New Year wishes expressed over the years have been too pleasant to be forgettable. The Homo Sapien species which is inherently cynical has this instinct to remember the unpleasant ones and I am no exception. I remember this one from 1st January, 1982. On the first New Year after his marriage to princess Diana, when the nosey British Paparazzi got a scent that her marriage with Prince Charles wasn't going too well, he wished them - "Have a Nasty New Year".

But I don't have to be nasty and negative. So let me repeat the forgettable wish, as I do not forget to do at the end of every year - HAVE A WONDERFUL NEW YEAR 2026 ahead and stay blessed.

RIP Ameen Sayani

 

We just passed is the birthdays of Ameen Sayani and the legendary singer Mohammed Rafi, both inseperable from Bollywood Cinema music. Ameen Sayani was the voice of CIBACA GEETMALA, a popular musical program on Radio Ceylon in the 70s and 80s which had good share of popular Rafi songs, the singer whose soft and sweet voice was unmatched in the world of music, though in the 1970s and until he died Kishore Kumar at the height of his popularity dominated the show.

Come December, come waves of memory recollection from the airwaves the indomitable voice and Hindi songs from the famous BINACA GEETMALA (which later changed to CIBACA GEETMALA) anchored by Ameen Sayani and aired by Radio Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was known then). The hour long program of contemporary Hindi hits played every Wednesday night which ranked songs based on their popularity chart struck a chord in me. At end of the year in the month of December Radio Ceylon aired a special program ranking the top 15 popular songs of the entire year. It instantly took me down to the memory lanes of 1970s and 80s.

Once a week, wafting over the airwaves would float in the unforgettable familiar voice of Ameen Sayani - BEHNO AUR BHAIYON, AAP SAB KO LE CHALTE HAIN ISH GANE KO, JO PICHHLE HAPHTE  PADAAN NUMBER 10 SE ABHI PADAAN NUMBER 6 PER AGAYA, "Dear Sisters and Brothers, taking you to this song which has jumped from position no 10 from last week to position number 6 this week".

The program played clips of a plethora of popular songs flooding the airwaves of our childhood and youth. Those were the nights sans television in Bhubaneswar. I would be waiting eagerly for every Wednesday, to tune in to what would be a non stop one hour feast of music fiesta commencing at 8 PM. At sharp 7.55 PM I would elongate the antenna of our MURPHY Brand radio. It was followed by a good 5 minutes of struggling to adjust the vertical bar to the exact location with intermittent bursts of stuttering farts from it, CHRRRRD... PRRRRRTT.., before I could finally manage to tune in.

It would be a very delicate balancing act on the short wave Radio. One millimeter here or there you get a whole different station and miss your favorite song. The reception was particularly bad towards the end of December when the special annual version of the program was aired as a fitting finale, bidding adieu to the year.

The program earlier used to be called BINACA GEETMALA, but the name BINACA was changed to CIBACA sometime in the late 1970s - a popular toothbrush/paste brand of the time (not sure if it still exists). But Ameen Sayani's mellifluous, sweet loquacious voice and unique style of narration which would arguably be the best marketing brand that company ever had remained unchanged.

Kishore Kumar & Lata Mangeshkar (often their duets) dominated CIBACA Geetmala those days, though other singers like Rafi, Mukesh, Asha Bhonsle, Suresh Wadkar had their fair share of contributions too. Popularity mattered. For example - in 1980 the song "HAME TUMSE PYAR KITNA" voiced by Kishore Kumar topped the popularity chart and played more often than the same song sang in a classic classical tune by Parveen Sultana. The choice of a music aficionado would be Parveen Sultana, however the general public went ga ga over Kishore version of the Gana (song), who was a natural singer pure in Raaga.

Kishore Kumar and Radio Ceylon have a history together. Internal Emergency was declared in June 1975 by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Her all powerful son Sanjay Gandhi wanted Kishore Kumar to sing in a Congress rally. Kishore Kumar, an extremely popular singer at that time refused to sing for Sanjay Gandhi and was promptly banned from government controlled All India Radio and TV. Folks used to tune to Radio Ceylon to hear Kishore da's songs until the ban on him lifted.

Amidst intermittent losses of signal and constant sputtering it was great fun nevertheless to listen with ears glued just inches away from the radio, wrapped in a shawl on those cold winter nights while waiting on a hot dinner of RUTI (Indian flat bread) and Cauliflower Reagan. Vegetables like Cauliflower, Cabbage, Tomato, Turnip etc used to be very seasonal and unlike these days it wasn't available round the year. Eaten during the short span of winter months the Cauliflower would be very tasty in November but eventually boring to the taste bud towards the end of the season.

I would pick a piece of hot cauliflower from the curry bowl, followed by blowing air with snorted lips to cool it down before munching. No sooner I finish a couple of florets than the rest of the cauliflowers would get cold. Blowing hot and cold, I could feel the pinch of winter in Bhonsar (Bhubaneswar as pronunced by many locals) those days with dual pleasure of eating dinner while listening to Cibaca Geetmala. These are memories from a bygone era to cherish forever. CIBACA GEETMALA is dead, so also Rafi, Kishore, Lata and Ameen Sayani, but they still live in our hearts. Those were the days and nights...

Merry Christmas 2025

 Holiday season and Christmas reminds me of my childhood days when back home in my home state of Odisha in India, Chistmas was popularly known as BADA DINA (The Big Day). I always wondered why we call it a big day, as the day being close to the Northern Solstice is one of the shortest in the Northern Hemisphere which includes India. I felt it should have been christened as BADA RATI (long night).

Eventually I found why. Christmas used to be a fun filled time for the British when they ruled India for couple of centuries. SAHIBs (Lords) and MEMSAHIBs (Ladies) as they were addressed obsequiously by the natives geared up several days before the occasion in preparation to celebrate Merry Christmas. The Englishmen threw lavish parties, wined, dined and danced late into the night making it a BADA RATI (Big night) of bacchanalian jamboree.

Unlike us Indians who celebrate 13 festivals in 12 months, the British focused on one day of the year. They reserved December 25 of the year, the birthday of Lord Jesus, for their annual grand gala time. The locals described the Christmas day as a big day, a BADA DINA for their BILAYATI (English) rulers. Many Odias still use the lingo to describe the Christmas 🎄 day. It is also called BADAA DIN in Hindi, meaning the same.

Unlike West where it is cold at this time of year, Christmas comes at a cool time in Odisha. The time is close to New Year when schools and colleges are closed for the holidays. The weather is salubrious, the ubiquitous scorching heat is absent, though it can get occasionally chilly when cold wave from north accompanied by gusty winds brings the sweaters and mufflers out. On balmy days it was time to play the game of Badminton🏸 in night. Women gave finishing touches to knitting woolen garments for their near and dear ones (Not sure if any one knits woolen garments these days in the era of ready -made clothings). 

Fresh winter vegetables are cheap and plentiful during this time of the year. New Year Day was celebrated on the New Year, i.e, 1st of January, rather than on its eve. It was time to get warm and fuzzy. I used to wait for the Boxing Day Cricket test match invariably held at the MCG, Melbourne, Australia on December 26, a day after the Christmas. Before the days of live telecast, I used to catch those Boxing Day Cricket by tuning in to Radio Australia while clutching on to blanket to escape from the morning chill. Post live telecast days it was funny and titillating for the teenager in me to watch scantily clad tall women turning over in Aussie stadiums, sunbathing in the summer of the Southern Hemisphere.

Back in those days a Christian family used to present us a nice home made fruit cake during the holiday season of Christmas at a time when good quality cake was a luxury in Odisha. Those available in a handful of stores tasted more like sugar laced bread than the real stuff. We used to wait eagerly for the once in a year luxury to savor a bite of the soft, brownish looking pound cake.

One person in our house who was not so excited was my deeply inquisitive grandmother. She always had this feeling there could be GORU MANSA (beef) stuffed inside the cake, especially the dark colored KISMIS (Raisins) which looked suspicious to her. A conservative Brahmin widow from a Sasan village near Puri, she got this perception that Christians and Muslims were perennial beef eaters - so whatever they imbibe contained beef.

She warned me of my PAITA (sacred thread worn by Brahmins) going MARAA (loss of sanctity) upon eating that cake  for which I need to do penance by taking bath in cow dung laced water sprinkled with a liberal dosage of GANGAJAL (water from river Ganga), followed by multiple trips to the Puri Jagannath temple near my village for self cleansing. Going through this ordeal for just eating a piece of cake hardly sounded exciting.

Fortunately I could religiously have my cake and eat it too without going through these reclamation rituals. Now I live in a land which happens to be the largest producer and consumer of Bovine meat and flooded with varieties of Cakes. But childhood memories are forever etched in our memory and die hard. The curious cat in me always takes a peek at the ingredients of all food items I purchase by doing an additional scan to ensure that beef isn't printed on the label.

Avoiding the stigma of eating beef is no piece of cake. But till date I haven't encountered a single cake that has beef as an ingredient. So the beef of the story is this Holiday season you can have your cake and eat it too. Enjoy the festivities and the Cakes and Drink responsibly. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

The man who saw Infinity

The other day I saw the movie "THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY". It is based on life story of an Indian Mathematical genius - Srinivas Ramanujan, played by Dev Patel and the role of his mentor Professor Hardy played by non other than the connoisseur British actor Jeremy Irons.

Ramanujan, an extraordinarily brilliant mind, rather a Math genius was born in an orthodox Brahmin family in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. A child prodigy, he vindicated that geniuses are born, rarely made - solving complex mathematical problems which were unsolved for eons using his fingertips without any help. 

His early days were spent in abject poverty with little support or formal education. But he exceled in the subject of Mathematics and his work didn't go unnoticed for long. The man didn't live long either - for he died at an young age of 32 from Tuberculosis, a scourge those days. Can't fathom what he could have done if he lived a full life. His letters to Professor Hardy in Cambridge made the later wonder about the papers either as the works of a genuis or stolen by some fraud. 

The West is known for nurturing talents. Professor Hardy didn't want to see a genius continue as a clerk in Madras Port. The British realized Ramanujan's potential and offered him a seat at Trinity College and later in Cambridge University in UK. Soon he boarded a ship to England, a decision not supported by his conservative Iyengar family for whom travelling across the seven seas was a taboo those days, tantamount to loss of caste, ultimately one's religion.

In a way, Ramanujan stole somebody's work. It was from some supernatural power. He admitted Goddess Namagiri came to him in his dreams, providing solutions to complex theorems which was instantly crystallized in his memory. When awake, he felt Her taking over his tongue - for at tip of his tongue lied solutions to complex numbers which he solved like simple equations, uttering the uniqueness about those numbers. It was something which was humanly impossible and can only be attributed to the hand of God - Goddess Namagiri in his case. Long before Diego Maradona mesmerized the English soccer team using his famous "Hand of God", Ramanujan impressed the English with his "Hand of Goddess".

He continued to amaze the Cambride Academics by solving the theory of Partitions and found the prime number closest to Infinity, for which he was billed as "The man who saw Infinity". Soon he was conferred with the coveted FRS (Fellow of Royal Society) - the youngest person to get it as Ramanujan was barely 30 years old at that time.

But fairy tales don't last long. Taking regular bath in the cold water of River Thames in London to fulfill his Brahmin rituals took its toll. He often fell sick and eventually contracted Tuberculosis - a dreaded, incurable disease of the time. A stickler to Brahmin traditions he refused to take modern medicine, aggravating his illness further. He was consumed by the dreaded consumption at the age of 32 - with the solace of breathing his last after coming back home to India.

Prof Hardy upon receiving the news of Ramanujan's imminent dying stage rushed to the hospital and casualy told the later the cab number which brought him to his friend who was about to breathe his last. He thought it to be a mundane number. But Ramanujan, then on his death bed told him, "Wait a minute. What's the number again" ? The professor responded - 1729. Impromptu came the answer from the genius, "This is not an ordinary number. It's the smallest number which can be expressed as sum of 2 cubes in two different ways". 1729 = 10^3+9^3 = 12^3 +1^3. He didn't leave long after this incident.

We should be glad that he left India for England where his work was recognized and recorded for posterity. Otherwise, the man who was working as a Clerk in Madras Port before his voyage to London would have retired as a Head Clerk, lost in the labyrinth of Indian Babudom, incognito, unrecognized. He would have faced the fate of the proverbial "BANA MALLI" (the fragrance of the Jasmine Flower of the Forest stays inside there, forever unknown to the outsiders) - No body would ever have known him, no movie ever made on his name as the man who knew infinity. My tribute to the man on his 138th Birthday. He was born this day December 22 in the year 1887.

Christmas party years ago

We had several Christmas parties recently. Every holiday season the Christmas parties remind me of one such party long time back in the 1990s when I was a new arrival in America. It was my first Christmas party in USA. Alcohol, especially the locally popular Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey and Jack Daniel were flowing like river Mahanadi in spate during monsoon or a flooded Chattahoochee river after heavy showers. New, shy and a bit unsure about myself to fit into the milieu I was sipping some Vodka, standing alone at a corner of the big banquet hall.

Sensing my loneliness three mountain sized coworkers, as big and burly as the local Appalachian mountain approached me with the intention of making me comfortable. They said Vodka is not sipped, rather tossed in at one go and gave me some demo by inviting me to join them to imbibe shots in unison. I got carried away by their attention and joined them liberally tossing down a few shots of Vodka repeating 1-2-3 go, 1-2-3 go several times.

My action had its consequences. I could feel the fiery stuff going down my esophagus, clearing away any doubts I had about Biology when last time I studied the subject during High School. It turned out to be a foolish decision on my part. Nothing happened to the big guys as they melted away inside the hall enjoying the party. Minutes passed by without anything happening to me while I munched some chicken nuggets and chunks of cheese on toothpicks.

As absolute power can corrupt absolutely, Absolute Vodka can intoxicate absolutely. Alcohol shrugged off my jaded nerves. Moments later suddenly my legs started getting wobbly and head swirling like whirlpool. The sound of this song played by the DJ suddenly started wavering and dancing with the light.

"Where'd ya come from Cotton eye Joe
I have been married long time ago.
Where'd come and where'd ya go,
Where'd come and where'd ya go."

The flickering lights started floating around me amidst the tap dancing Cowboy hat wearing men and red dressed women. All of a sudden they started looking blurred to my elated, intoxicated eyelids. The sound of the music got louder and louder, as I stumbled couple of times. But I was in my sense and sensible enough to know where I was heading to. So I thought it judicious not to hang around anymore and make an ass out of myself. Rather it would be wise for me to head back to my apartment sooner than later.

On my return drive I rolled down the windows to let in the frigid Midwest air to keep me alert and awake. Luckily I encountered no cops. A DUI or Driving Under Influence of alcohol could have hampered my on going Green Card, i.e. the Permanent Resident status in US which was under process during that time (An advice to my friends not to drink and drive, especially if your Green Card processing is still on. A DUI at that juncture certainly won't help you).

No sooner I reached home than I crashed on bed, my shoes half hanging from my feet. It was 10 AM the next day when I woke up with a heavy head and parched throat, feeling my urine has dried up. Drank a full bottle of water to see my urine resembling mustard oiI. I spent the entire next day nursing my hangover. That experience was enough of a lesson for me to never get drunk and go overboard with alcohol. So far I have religiously adhered to it. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Enjoy the season responsibly.