Solutions at the bottom of a bottle, en masse

Drinking, as I best understand it and in my humblest of opinions, is a social concept. That is to say that one generally consumes/imbibes alcohol in the company of others — a gross generalisation perhaps, but I did say ‘generally’.

Of course, there are those times when some people feel the need to seek solace at the bottom of a bottle, immerse their sorrows in liquor or drown their unhappiness and such-like. While possibly not being the best way to go about things, if it helps them, then it's all good. Right?

Said activity can occur at home, whether openly in the living room, with the TV on or sneakily in the bathroom, with a cleverly concealed bottle. It could occur out on the street, stumbling around with a brown paper bag masking a bottle, as one celebrates one's own hobo-magnificence. Alternatively, there's always a bar/pub/drinking house where seated among one's ilk, it's made so much easier to drink drink drink the night away. Of course, there are tons more places to drink, but I'm stopping now, partly out of boredom and partly because this is my stop, so I'll disembark and allow the bus of thought (yeah! Analogy King) continue its journey through your mind.

There are normal bars/pubs/drinking houses/taverns and then there are *those* bars — I'm not talking about dance bars,... at all. Walking past one of *those*, it's not hard to feel a twinge of sympathy, perhaps even empathy for its patrons. To explain my fairly vague point, I shall resort to the use of an example — a fine example, quite possibly the best of its kind.

Café General, mere spitting distance away from Wilson College comprises this brilliant example. A cursory glance into the place as you walk past it will show you exactly what I mean. Almost all the tables in that place are taken up by solo drinkers. Ignoring the economical downside for the proprietors of that dive (one seat occupied per four chairs ain't good economics), it truly is a sight and a half to gaze upon the sea of depressed faces staring into the distance or giving their drink a little shake and knocking it back. Slowly, they rise reluctantly and in super slow motion, to leave and go home presumably, to families that probably give them unimaginable amounts of grief. Their jobs have probably stopped being troublesome chores, because they've either already been fired or the part of them that wanted to do something creative and fun to earn money is pushing up proverbial daisies. Sobering huh?

What makes this joint even more morose — if that were humanly possible — isn't the appropriately matching long faces of its waiters. It's the droning jukebox, emitting strains of the most depressing Hindi music from years long gone. The archetypal black and white flick music that would usually depict the protagonist sitting on a footpath, crooning sadly into the night. You know the type. What would probably constitute devdas music — not to be confused with the soundtrack of the films, but you know what I mean.

Logically, it wouldn't really make a whole heap of sense to depress oneself further, if one were already depressed. So why surround oneself with even more sorrow, be served by sorrowful waiters to the strains of sorrow hanging in the airwaves? One of those new-age remedies, perhaps?