𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐬𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬

AKA - SOCIETY IS BUILT WITH DRUGS

Society survives on poisons it pretends to reject — chai, liquor, pills, screens, even faith. Denial is collapse. The task is to face it, reduce harm, and understand. This is an invitation to see and understand.

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𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

There is no such thing as a sober society.

Every civilization, every empire, every community that has walked this earth has stood on drugs — tobacco smoke curling in markets, liquor spilled at weddings, coffee poured in offices, betel nut crushed between teeth, opium drifting in dark corners, cannabis rising in song.

It is not possible to build a society without drugs. Whoever claims otherwise is blind to history, or drunk on their own illusions. Even the saints, the reformers, the revolutionaries — they all leaned on these substances to hold their people together. Gandhi may have preached purity, abstinence, self-control, but it was his campaigns against liquor and opium that ironically cemented their role in the Indian psyche. He fought them as enemies, yet in fighting, he gave them more weight than ever before.

Every cry for a “better society” has, in truth, only deepened the dependence. A society without drugs is a mirage. People need release, rulers need revenue, cultures need rituals, economies need fuel. From the humblest village to the grandest metropolis, drugs are not stains on civilization — they are the ink with which civilization itself is written.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡

Human beings have always turned to substances to escape pain, celebrate joy, bond with others, or dull the emptiness of daily living. Tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, opium, caffeine, betel nut — every culture has its poisons. These are not accidents. They are woven into the very structure of society.

Take them away, and society does not stand on its own feet. It shakes. It cracks. It collapses.

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𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐟

Life everywhere is hard.

In Tokyo, the salaryman downs whiskey after work to survive his 14-hour shift culture.

In America, the factory worker cracks open a six-pack of beer to silence the noise of layoffs, debts, and dead dreams.

In India, the farmer chews gutka, the autorickshaw driver smokes beedis, the software engineer guzzles coffee to power through nights of coding.

These are not luxuries. They are survival tools. Without them, stress spills into rage, depression, violence. Drugs act as society’s pressure valves. Remove them, and you invite explosions.

---

𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐓𝐚𝐱𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬

Governments survive on poison.

In India, liquor contributes up to 30% of state revenues in places like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Punjab. Ban it, and budgets collapse.

Britain built its empire on opium, forcing China into addiction during the Opium Wars.

Colombia and Mexico’s underground economies run on cocaine; Afghanistan’s on heroin; America on Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol lobbyists.

The world’s balance sheet is stained with nicotine, ethanol, and narcotics. If you erase them, governments bleed money, industries crumble, unemployment soars.

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𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥

The real genius of drugs is not pleasure. It is control.

A drunk worker does not rise in protest; he sleeps.

A chain-smoker does not plan revolution; he looks for the next lighter.

A coffee-addict does not question endless work; he fuels himself for one more shift.

From tea stalls in Delhi to Starbucks in New York, from vodka in Moscow to sake in Osaka, drugs pacify, distract, and silence the masses. Governments know this. Corporations know this. That’s why they will never truly let them go.

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𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠

Drugs are carved into rituals.

No Indian wedding without alcohol.

No American football game without beer.

No Arab souk without coffee.

No Chinese festival without tobacco smoke curling in the air.

These are not just habits. They are identity. Take away the cigarette from Parisian cafés, or whiskey from Scottish pubs, or sake from Japanese izakayas — and entire cultural fabrics unravel.

Brands do the rest. A cigarette in a movie, a celebrity with a glass, a coffee ad at dawn — these turn poison into prestige, ritual into glamour. Addiction is not only in the bloodstream; it is in the imagination.

---

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐥

If tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, cocaine vanished overnight, society would not smoothly adapt.

Millions of addicts would collapse into withdrawal — tremors, paranoia, depression.

Violence would rise. Suicide rates would spike.

Black markets would bloom overnight, more violent than ever. Prohibition in America (1920s) already proved this: alcohol did not vanish, it went underground, fueling gangs and bloodshed.

And with prohibition comes the machinery of control: laws, squads, prisons, surveillance, new industries of punishment. The so-called “war on drugs” is not a war at all — it is an economy.

Collapse is not a metaphor. It is literal chaos.

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𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬, 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

Work shapes longing.

When labour grinds, people reach for relief; when wages shrink, patience shrinks with it.

Drugs are not only taxed commodities — they are coping mechanisms carved by economic systems that refuse rest.

The factory worker’s beer, the coder’s coffee, the farmer’s gutka, the miner’s liquor bottle — these are not indulgences but lubricants of an unjust system. Take them away without changing the system, and collapse is certain.

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𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

Dependence is not gender-neutral.

The same alcohol that dulls a man’s stress can sharpen his hand against a woman. The same addiction that empties his wallet robs her of safety, care, and bread. Women carry both the scars and the unpaid labour of dependence.

To speak of collapse without naming gender is to look away from the most intimate battlefield where drugs do their work.

---

𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬

The bottle and the leaf carry ships behind them.

Colonial trade carved its path through opium, rum, sugar, and tobacco. Wars were fought, nations enslaved, continents reorganised around these commodities. Today’s supply chains — coca from Colombia, opium from Afghanistan, tobacco from Virginia, coffee from Brazil, alcohol everywhere — are not separate from geopolitics. They are geopolitics.

Erase them, and you do not just hurt habit. You destabilise borders, armies, and economies.

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𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬

The clinic is another kind of bar.

Here the drug does not come in a glass but in a tablet, a capsule, a prescription pad. Psychiatric pills, opioids for pain, sedatives for sleep — all marketed as relief, all consumed in silence.

Modern societies medicalise suffering, fold it into markets, and call it treatment. Remove these too suddenly, and collapse would flow through hospitals as quickly as it would through taverns.

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𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐬: 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡, 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐬, 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐬

When one vice is cut off, another blooms. Phones, betting apps, endless shopping malls — these are the new spirits. Clean, legal, brightly lit. They sedate as surely as whiskey or tobacco.

A sober society is impossible not only because of bottles and smoke, but because human beings will always invent new ways to numb themselves.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟

The soil carries the trade.

Fields of leaf and pod support villages and shape landscapes. Poppy in Afghanistan, coca in Colombia, tobacco in Virginia, vineyards in France — these are not only economies but ecologies. Strip them away, and you do not only ruin lives, you redraw the land itself.

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𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐮𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠

Punishment adds weight.

Addiction already breaks the body. Society then breaks the person — with stigma, criminal records, exile. Collapse is not only in withdrawal; it is in the shame that buries people deeper than the drug itself.

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𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦

If the goal is less dependence, the path is not law alone. It is rebuilding work, care, ritual, income, and meaning — slow structural surgery, not sudden amputation.

Prohibition blinds. Harm reduction sees. Only by rebuilding the soil of daily life can any society even dream of drinking less from its poisons.

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧

From tribal shamans brewing ayahuasca in the Amazon, to Wall Street brokers snorting cocaine in Manhattan, to the rickshaw driver sipping rum in Mumbai — it is the same story. Drugs are the glue, the release, the currency, the silence.

And if not drugs, then ideologies, technologies, brands. Humans will always find their intoxicants.

---

𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

The dream of a sober society is the greatest lie we keep telling ourselves. We imagine a future free of poisons, where men and women live pure, clean, balanced lives — untouched by smoke, drink, or powders. But this is fiction. A fairy tale for children.

Look closer: no empire was ever sober, no religion ever sober, no revolution ever sober. Every king, every prophet, every reformer — all carried the smell of liquor, tobacco, tea, coffee, hashish, or opium somewhere in their story. From the Sufi saints who drank wine in their poetry, to the English empire built on gin and tobacco, to the Indian nationalist movement where even Gandhi’s resistance gave liquor its permanent stage — sobriety has never been a foundation. It has only ever been a slogan.

Without drugs, society would not heal. It would break. The order you see today — the governments, the markets, the jobs, the festivals — they are all stitched together by the steady hum of substances. Take them away, and the hum turns to screams.

This is the final truth: civilization survives not on purity, but on poison. It is the poison that keeps the machine running, the poison that dulls the pain, the poison that fills the treasuries, the poison that binds strangers into communities.

So when someone promises you a cleaner, better, sober society, know this — they are either lying to you, or lying to themselves. Because no sober society has ever existed. And none ever will.

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THE CHAI THAT KEEPS THE WORLD ALIVE

-- a Dialogue with Madhukar

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

Madhukar — Host, thinker, uncompromising.

Scholar — Historian of Indian society.

Doctor — Government hospital physician.

Addict (Ex-user) — Former alcohol-dependent worker.

Economist — Studies taxation and rural economy.

Activist — Grassroots worker in anti-liquor movements.

Artist — Poet and songwriter.

Common Man — Autorickshaw driver.

Housewife — Village woman, mother of two.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏: 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐒𝐨𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐈𝐬 𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐞

(Early morning. Everyone is seated in a circle.)

Scholar: Madhukar, you called us here saying no sober society exists. Can you explain?

Madhukar: Look around. Every chai stall is full before sunrise. Every bus driver chews tobacco. Every wedding ends with alcohol. Every IT worker starts with coffee. Sobriety is a fantasy. Without these crutches, society would limp and fall.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐧’𝐬 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐡

Common Man: Sir, I light a beedi every morning. My chest hurts, my wife shouts, but without it my hands shake on the steering wheel. What choice do I have?

Madhukar: Your beedi is not luxury. It is survival. A society that makes you work 14 hours in heat without respect needs you to smoke. Otherwise, you will explode. The beedi keeps you quiet.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐟𝐞’𝐬 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

Housewife: But in my home, drink destroys everything. Money gone, children hungry, beatings at night. For me, liquor is not survival. It is collapse.

Madhukar: Exactly. The system gives the man escape and gives the woman burden. He is drunk, you are bleeding. Society pretends it is neutral, but drugs always crush the weakest first.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒: 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫

Doctor: Every week I see liver failure, gutka cancers, alcohol withdrawal fits. Families cry, but shops reopen in the morning. Isn’t this madness?

Madhukar: Not madness — design. The shop at the front and the hospital at the back are two ends of the same pipe. The state sells the bottle, you treat the corpse. Both are part of the same economy.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐋𝐨𝐨𝐩

Economist: In Tamil Nadu, liquor revenue pays teachers and builds roads. If shops shut, the state collapses. What is the alternative?

Madhukar: The alternative is honesty. Admit that the state is the biggest bootlegger. The government beats the drunkard while running the liquor shop. That is the hypocrisy we must tear open first.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭’𝐬 𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐲

Addict: People told me, “Be strong.” But when every street has a liquor shop, what strength is possible? I only stopped when my liver collapsed.

Madhukar: That is the truth. Addiction is not weakness of one man. It is architecture. The whole town is drunk, not just you.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐭’𝐬 𝐅𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Activist: We forced liquor shops to shut. But within weeks, illegal sales started. Prices went up, violence increased. What did we achieve?

Madhukar: You discovered the truth: prohibition is a dam. Desire floods elsewhere. The river cannot be stopped, only redirected.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖: 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐠

Artist: In my songs, people love verses on brandy more than verses on gods. Maybe art itself is drunk.

Madhukar: Yes. Cinema sells alcohol as glamour. Songs sell it as pain relief. Coffee sells poems. Art is society’s mirror, and the mirror is always fogged with smoke.

---

(Quick chai break. Everyone returns with fresh cups. The circle tightens.)

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗: 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐬

Scholar: Can you show us how colonialism shaped this?

Madhukar: The British ran on opium, tea, sugar, tobacco. Opium from Bihar funded the empire. Tea was forced onto us until “chai” replaced prayer as India’s morning ritual. Even today, no station, no office, no parliament starts without chai. That is empire alive inside us.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐞𝐥𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧

Economist: But aren’t crops neutral?

Madhukar: Neutral? Ask Vidarbha’s farmer who grows tobacco instead of food grain. Ask the soil that grows sugarcane for liquor while children go hungry. That is collapse — when land itself serves addiction instead of hunger.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏: 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐚𝐬 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞

Addict: For me, the empire was my pain. My father’s death, my debts. Drink was my soldier.

Madhukar: Correct. Pain is the emperor. Drugs are its soldiers. As long as pain rules, society will sell soldiers to fight it.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟐: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥

Doctor: These days IT workers live on antidepressants, women on sleeping pills. What about that?

Madhukar: The chemist is the new liquor shop. Same intoxication, only packed in capsules with receipts. The society that once numbed itself with toddy now numbs itself with tablets.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟑: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐏𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬

Artist: Phones are worse. People check screens in the middle of recording sessions. Even music is second to WhatsApp.

Madhukar: Exactly. Liquor ends when the bottle empties. Screens never end. This is a drug with infinite stock. The collapse is silent, invisible, endless.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟒: 𝐅𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐬 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠

Scholar: But religion offers purity, doesn’t it?

Madhukar: Religion is the oldest drug. Temples are dens of collective intoxication. Crowds chant, bells ring, people lose themselves. Kings loved priests because faith pacifies better than liquor. Even today, people fight for gods, not for farmers. Isn’t that intoxication?

Common Man: True. I smoke beedis in the morning, temple incense in the evening. Both keep me quiet.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟓: 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐃𝐫𝐮𝐠

Activist: And what about politics?

Madhukar: Another intoxicant. Flags, rallies, slogans — all give high. Politicians supply that high during elections, then withdraw it, keeping people restless and dependent. A society drunk on politics is no different from one drunk on liquor.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟔: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

Doctor: So Madhukar, what is to be done?

Madhukar: First, stop lying. Admit openly: society runs on drugs — chai, tobacco, liquor, screens, gods, slogans. Second, reduce harm, don’t pretend purity. Third, give people dignity — jobs that don’t crush, lives that don’t wound, spaces that don’t suffocate. Then the need for poison may reduce. But erase it completely? Impossible. No kitchen runs without fire. Fire burns, fire cooks, fire destroys. Yet every family needs it. Drugs are the same.

Housewife: And if we don’t admit it?

Madhukar: Then collapse is not in the future. It is already here.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕: 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐮𝐩𝐬

Scholar: Madhukar, can we speak of caste here? Is addiction also divided by caste lines?

Madhukar: Look at any toddy shop in a Tamil Nadu village. Who drinks there? Dalits, landless labourers, construction workers. And who preaches prohibition? Often the upper castes who sip endless cups of coffee in their drawing rooms. Tea and coffee are caste-approved drugs. Toddy and arrack are caste-stained drugs.

Housewife: True. When my husband drinks arrack, people call him dirty. But when the landlord drinks whiskey, they call him modern.

Madhukar: Exactly. The poison is the same. But the caste of the drinker decides whether it is shame or sophistication.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟖: 𝐂𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐦𝐨𝐤𝐞

Artist: In films, the hero lights a cigarette, and the crowd whistles. Even warnings on screen don’t stop it. Why?

Madhukar: Because cinema is not entertainment in India. It is scripture. People learn how to love, fight, dance, and smoke from films. Show a god, they bow. Show a bottle, they drink. Show a man breaking a chair, they break buses outside the theatre. Films don’t mirror society. Films manufacture it.

Common Man: Sir, I started smoking after watching Rajinikanth flip a cigarette.

Madhukar: There you go. Your lung is his fan club.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟗: 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐫

Activist: Even if liquor ads are banned, surrogate ads are everywhere. Soda bottles, music CDs, sports sponsorships — all hiding whiskey.

Madhukar: Brands are smarter than laws. They don’t just sell bottles. They sell status. A man drinking rum is a poor drunkard. A man holding a bottle with a horse logo is a gentleman. That’s how advertising turns poison into pride.

Artist: Even songs mention brand names now. Liquor is not hidden; it is celebrated.

Madhukar: When a bottle becomes an aspiration, collapse is already written into culture.

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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎: 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐩

Economist: Madhukar, we speak of taxes, but what about elections?

Madhukar: Every election in India is soaked in liquor. Parties distribute bottles like prasadam. One night of free drinks buys five years of silence. Liquor is the unofficial election commission. Without it, half the votes would dry up.

Housewife: I have seen it. Men line up outside party offices for bottles. Then they forget their promises and sell our future.

Madhukar: Democracy is drunk. The ballot box smells of arrack.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟏: 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧’𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬

Activist: Women have risen against liquor many times. From Andhra to Bihar, they smashed shops, stopped sales. Yet, the cycle returns. Why?

Madhukar: Because women fight collapse while men run the economy. Women break bottles, but the state counts revenue. Women shout, but the liquor lobby whispers in ministers’ ears. When power itself is drunk, women’s voices are drowned.

Housewife: Still, we will not stop. For us, it is survival.

Madhukar: And that is why women’s movements are the only true resistance. Because they fight not for ideology, but for food, safety, and breath.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐: 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐦𝐚

Addict: I know the worst part of addiction. Not the hangover. Not the vomiting. It is the shame. People spit at you, call you useless. They don’t see the pain behind the bottle.

Madhukar: Shame is society’s second poison. First you drink to escape pain. Then you are punished for drinking. It is a trap with no door.

Doctor: True. I have seen patients hide their illness until it is too late, because they feared being called drunkards.

Madhukar: Stigma kills faster than liquor.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟑: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈𝐬 𝐓𝐨 𝐁𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐞?

Scholar: Madhukar, after all this, what is the answer? Can we not imagine a clean society at least for our children?

Madhukar: Imagine, yes. Achieve, no. Children will inherit both the bottle and the beedi, the chai and the phone, the god and the flag. The work is not to dream of purity but to reduce harm. Admit openly: society runs on drugs. Then at least we can manage the fire. But if we lie, if we keep chanting “drug-free,” the lie itself will destroy us.

---

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

Housewife: And if we keep lying?

Madhukar: Then collapse is not a danger. Collapse is already here. You are living inside it.

(Silence. Everyone stares into their empty cups. The truth sits heavier than chai.)

---

(The dialogue ends, not with answers, but with a silence heavy as truth. The chai cups are dry. The day has burned on. Each visitor carries the weight home, knowing they cannot un-hear what was said.)

---

---

---

𝐀𝐧 𝐀𝐬𝐡𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐬 𝐀 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

chai is not a drink.

it is the morning whistle,

the way the earth says:

“get up, move, break your bones for the system.”

it is railway platforms crowded at dawn,

glasses rattling, vendors screaming,

labourers burning their tongues

because the train doesn’t wait

and the job doesn’t either.

chai keeps the wheels turning,

not prayer, not patriotism —

chai.

---

a beedi is not tobacco.

it is the fuse inside the rickshaw driver’s chest,

the stitch that holds his temper together

when a passenger spits in his face,

when traffic strangles his lungs.

without that smoke,

the street is blood,

the city is riot.

the beedi burns slow

so the man doesn’t.

---

liquor is not a bottle.

it is a ledger.

the state drinks deeper than any drunk.

every swallow is tax,

every bottle is a budget line,

teachers’ salaries, roads, hospitals

all swimming in the froth.

you call it sin,

but your children’s textbooks

are printed with alcohol.

this is the national business plan:

drink, die, and pay for it on the way out.

---

the housewife hides coins in rice tins.

she knows the sound of empty pockets,

the smell of alcohol on her husband’s sweat,

the sound of children tightening their stomachs.

her nights are fists,

her mornings are silence.

society says “family is sacred,”

but she knows the family altar

is built on broken bottles.

---

the doctor mops vomit in the ward.

sees stomachs ruptured, throats rotting,

mouths red with gutka,

livers shrunk like dried mangoes.

and still, outside the hospital,

shops open with fresh stock.

it is not healing,

it is recycling:

bottle to body,

body to bed,

bed to grave.

and the line at the shop never shortens.

---

an addict kneels to a god

no one worships in public.

his god is pain.

he does not pray with flowers,

he prays with glass bottles,

he prays with smoke,

he prays with pills.

people spit on him,

but they don’t see that his god

lives in every home,

hidden,

unspoken,

fed by silence.

---

activists march,

shout,

break shutters,

burn liquor shops.

for one week, streets dry.

for one week, men stumble.

then the back lanes flood.

plastic pouches appear,

arrack in teacups,

home brews stronger than any licensed bottle.

desire doesn’t die,

it migrates.

---

cinema teaches how to drink.

the hero lights a cigarette

and the crowd whistles,

the villain pours whisky

and boys in the theatre dream of being him.

the cancer warning on screen is ignored.

the only warning that matters is style.

heroes sell swagger,

villains sell rage.

both sell smoke.

---

brands are cleverer than priests.

they turn poison into pride.

a glass of scotch in a hotel is “class.”

the same spirit in a sachet is “filth.”

the same ethanol,

different packaging.

add caste to it,

and suddenly tea is pure,

toddy is polluted.

who drinks decides whether it is shame or sophistication.

---

elections are carnivals of liquor.

bottles flow like river water.

votes are soaked before they are cast.

five years of silence

are bought with one night of intoxication.

democracy is drunk

long before the ink touches the finger.

---

temples are bars with bells.

the incense smoke is no different from cigarette smoke.

crowds sway,

chants rise,

eyes roll,

ecstasy floods the hall.

faith is not cleaner than alcohol.

it is only older.

priests pour belief into veins

the way bartenders pour drinks.

---

politics is a hangover.

crowds high on flags,

slogans screamed until throats crack.

after the rally,

they go home hungry.

after the vote,

they go home poorer.

the intoxication of slogans

lasts longer than liquor,

but the headache is the same.

---

pain is the real dealer.

it sells without license,

without profit,

without pause.

the drunk doesn’t drink for taste.

he drinks to rent silence

from his pain.

pain never runs out of stock.

---

the chemist has replaced the toddy shop.

pills for sleep,

pills for nerves,

pills for sadness.

arrack now comes in capsules,

with receipts,

with dosage printed on labels.

respectable intoxication.

the same high,

but with cleaner packaging.

---

phones are smarter poisons.

no hangover,

no vomit,

no smell.

just endless scrolling

until eyes bleed and fingers numb.

a drug with infinite supply,

always free,

always near.

this is the bottle that never empties.

---

the land itself is high.

fields grow sugarcane for rum,

tobacco for lungs,

poppies for wars.

land that once grew food

now grows death.

the soil is drunk,

and the farmer is broke.

---

shame is another drug.

it sticks harder than alcohol.

a drunkard is mocked,

a widow is blamed,

a woman who speaks is silenced.

people hide their bottles,

hide their hunger,

hide their collapse.

shame kills faster than spirits.

---

women pay the ancient tax.

men drink,

women cover bruises.

men smoke,

women cough in kitchens.

men vote drunk,

women stretch one rupee for two meals.

society runs on her silence,

and calls her holy for keeping it.

---

history itself is addicted.

opium wars,

tea plantations,

tobacco empires.

nations rose on fumes.

freedom was funded by poison.

even independence was brewed in chai kettles

and liquor stalls.

---

children inherit the bottle,

the beedi,

the screen,

the chant.

schools preach sobriety,

but sell Pepsi in canteens.

purity is not in the syllabus.

addiction is.

---

a drug-free society is a fire-free kitchen.

fire burns,

fire feeds,

fire destroys.

still, every home needs it.

the same with drugs.

you cannot erase them.

you can only manage the flames.

---

society doesn’t collapse when people drink.

society collapses when people drink

and then pretend

they don’t.

an ashtray is a nation:

burnt out,

blackened,

stinking,

still waiting

for the next match.

---

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