The unthinkable has happened. I have been suspected of being drunk at a dinner where the parents're drunk themselves, that's two unthinkables in one, so of course it's all in vain as I try to explain that I didn't know the bathroom switch was outside instead of inside, because I've been to the neighbours' only once and (miraculously) didn't have to use the bathroom then.

Everyone's still sniggering when I come out and talking about how twenty year olds are expected to be hapless and hopeless and things like that, and the parents have somewhat forced smiles on but then Deep uncle brings out the iPod and starts playing ghazals on it. Two minutes later everyone is swaying from side to side and slurring along to Itna na mujhse pyaar karo, main nashe mein hoon. I'm sitting upright, so is Pooploo (but that is only his daaknaam, although he already looks like he suffers plenty because of it), the only two people who're being hit by all the layers of wrongness the song brings with it. I've grown up listening to it. So has he, I guess. Then everyone starts talking about nasha And Its Various Forms, and what they did when they were young, and they all have funny stories except I can't laugh too much for fear of looking precocious or tipsy or both. Then we have dinner. I take three helpings of kaali dal and people are still assuming I'm drunk, I really don't know why, then they ask me why daal over mutton and I make the mistake of telling them I judge the daal before I judge the mutton because meat's meat, it'll taste good as long as it has oil and salt on it, but daal takes an expert hand to make, and everyone stares.

And there's silence.

Then I chuck caution to the wind and accept drambuie and knock it down, then someone says that the dessert's so good aisa lag raha hai ki munh me madhuri dixit ko le liya humne, I want to die precisely half a second later. But it's fun all the same and everyone's still discussing nasha And Its Various Forms. Somewhere between bhaang and dhatura I decide to leave and Deep uncle sees me to the door and tells me, yaad rakhna, jo pet mein jaaye theek hai, jo lungs mein jaaye theek nahin, isko maankar jiyoge toh mast rahoge. And I don't have the heart to tell him that I turned up qwertied, which is why I emptied the daal handi.