Of high alcohol taxes and cruel April

April, said TS Eliot, and as all Eng Lit students know, is the cruellest month. But while he was off to other planes, we’ve got some serious cruelty to deal with here in Mumbai. And I’m not talking about the heat. After all, as all our Indian poets will tell us, this is spring. It may be horribly hot, but the koel is singing, getting hysterical outside my window to be honest. Trees are in full bloom — lagerstroemia indica, peltophorum pterocarpum, laburnum, and although I have not yet seen a delonix regia in all its glory, why should it be left out?

 April is not cruel because TS Eliot said so or because the temperature and humidity levels are not full of compassion. No, April is cruel because this is the month which marks the beginning of the time when the Maharashtra government has decided that we can no longer drown our sorrows without murdering our bank balances.

Every day, as the government looks at figures of the quality of life in Mumbai, it becomes more and more dissatisfied. What, people have green open spaces? Nonsense, we need more buildings. What, people need schools and colleges? Nonsense, a little lack of education never hurt anyone. What, too many people getting malaria? Nonsense, we’ve given them access to so many other diseases to die from like cholera, dysentery, and gastro; from the water quality; cardiac and pulmonary diseases from the stress of living here and the pollution; lepto from the rats and more. What, people are trying to have fun on their limited budgets? Nonsense, just tax them some more.

So just when I’d decided that the only way to fight mosquitoes in my area was to drink enough gin with tonic water to keep the quinine flowing through my system at all times, a 60% increase in taxation on alcohol has put an end to that. This makes life very difficult. Because like so many Indians (and Mumbaikars), when I open the newspapers every morning, I am full of despair. Then I think about the Ajit Pawar budget, guaranteed to make our lives more miserable than they already are, and I know that people are right when they said Eliot was God.

O, you are thinking, advocating alcohol, how wicked. But look at it this way: life offers us very few, simple pleasures, and fermented fruit and grain has long been one of them. Moderation, as we all know, is the key, and brutal taxation is far from moderate. So I raise a glass of water to April and start looking for some more poets. Not Keats, because he goes on and on about bubbles and red wine. Gaaaaaah!