So alcohol, known by several names due to different way of manufacturing, different sources of making but the fact remains that it is one of the most sought after fluids on the planet after water.
It is debatable that precisely when and where it was invented. But it is believed that first signs of it were in pottery during Neolithic period which archalogists excaved in China, Georgia as well as elsewhere. The traces are some 7000 years before birth of Jesus Christ. This also true that this quest for miraclrous drinks took a back seat in its early years as it was little difficult to store.
There were three stages in the long life of spirit and wines. First people saw it as God send, requiring it to be treated with reverance using for religious rituals. Then comes its therapatic qualities, its potential to alleviate pains and other discomforts of the body. Finally it entered into secular and modern society and acted as great social lubricating tool, became medium of social connectivity and mass entertainment.
Ancient people-especially Egyptians entombing their deceased kings or Chinese holding last rites of their dead, were clear about what should accompany the departed. Archeologists found vine vessels from burial chambers in the different parts of the world. Not surprising, in most of the ancient cultures, you will find a God or Goddess dedicated to spirit and wine. It was Ninkasi, God of Drinks in Sumerian culture, Osiris in Egypt, Dionysus in Greece, Bacchus in Rome, Siduri in Babylon. Religious practices celebrating alcohol surround these deities. God differed, belief differed, rituals evolved in multifarious ways over the time, but the drink that the ancients patronised remained same across the cultures. Jewish people also treated their ailments with wine as we find mention in Talmud which says, 'Whenever wine is lacking, drugs become necessary.'if we talk about Indian culture, since the very inception we had the native familiarity with wines. The artifacts found at the sites of Harappa. In ancient times, wine was often referred as Somras, the favourite drink of Devtas. Also a reference of Drakshasava is also found in ancient Aryurvedic texts, which was basically a digestive preparation made from the ripened red grapes and herbs like cinnamon, cardamom, nagkesera, vidanga, tejpatra, pippali and black pepper. This tradition still continues, I still vividly recollect that my great grandfather used to prepare this potion it in a very methodical and religious way. Our six century medical text states,'wine is invigorator of mind body, antidote to sleeplessness, sorrow and fatigue. Christianity has two polar views about wine, it changed instances over a period of time. The Old Testament seems little ambiguous about its approach to drink. The moral conflict never subside. Now a days we see the Church, which once patronised the production and sale of beer and wine, laboriously trying to explain the act of Jesus turning water into the wine Cana. The temperance movement of the 19th century declared it was not fermented drink that Jesus made but unfermented grape juice. But for the crusaders of prohibition who strove to scrub the Bible of positive reference to the drink, the Chritian ritual of transubstantiation -in which wine was seen as a symbol of Jesus's blood-was harder to chip at. Ambiguity in how to approach the drink befuddled not only keepers of the faith, but affected secular powers too.
The authorities of different times and regions played hot and cold, sometimes encouraging the drink for the benefit of tax collections and sometimes restricting it for the fear of unrest. Warnings were issued on how to drink moderately. From the Code of Hammurabi issued in Babylon in 1770 BCE-the earliest codification so intended to regulate the price and strength of beer-states have been trying to get into driver's seat, but in vain. In the 19th and 20th centuries, when the temperance movement gained strength, European countries tried to restrict the consumption of alcohol by enacting various laws. Then Russia's never ending fight with Vodka, at the turn of the last century, first the Tsar and then the new Bolshevik regime took stern measures, to stern the tide, prohibit alcohol and get a sober army to take on the enemy. Russia came to learn what the European nations that had dallied with the idea of a total ban had understood. Prohibition has tried in India also but not much success achieved. Presently it is tried in Gujrat and now in Bihar. The attempts of Governments to turn people into teetotallers for their well being are half hearted so results are not as desired. Sometime these efforts slowly undermined by a series of unlawful activities. Hooch Mafia mushroomed, moonshine flourished, men slipped into dark corners to sneak themselves drinks, much of it adulterated. In many countries as well as in many of our states prohibition has been repealed. It is not possible to remain fully dry despite prohibition when your state is geographically surrounded by wet states.
What about consumption of alcohol by women ? Right from early days, when men began enjoying community activity, the presence of women in the drinking place was abhorred . In symposiums held by Greek men where they enjoyed discussions of debauchery, woman were allowed only as musicians or as servers. It was thought that women who drank lost their moral bearings and were prone to become sexually promiscuous. Even noted physicians like Hippocrates who believed that the warmth of wine and 'the warm bodies of men'aligned well, but the body of woman 'being cold and wet' could not hold drink properly. In Rome, men only had to state that their wives drank wine to obtain divorce.
But over the years, women start stepping out from shadows-as ale woman who brewed ale for their village folk. This did not last long. As town drew, small establishments lost their appeal and were replaced by commercial enterprises which barred women once again. the patriarchy feared that the traditional role it set for women-as caretaker of the children and family-would upset if the fairer sex dallied too much with alcohol. This may be the reason, law aware made in different part of the world at different stages to wean women away from the poison men gleefully drank.
Colonialism has also changed drinking habits of natives. In pre-colonial times indigenous people used to enjoy mildly alcoholic beverages to their heart's content. But when the West's high alcoholic content i.e. distilled beverages pushed and replaced the mild one. This is really a sad story.
.jpg "A Gumnam Actress Strips Nude to Protest Auto/taxi Fare Hike")
