Satvic Scotch & Karmic Kick

Just a kilometer away from my vicinity, I noticed a striking new signboard of a recently opened liquor shop. Elegant in design, ambient in lighting, the shop is thronged by a lively crowd of eager drinkers. What caught my attention wasn’t just the crowd or the decor, but the curious board name displayed: “Satvic Scotch.” For a moment, I stood puzzled, how could liquor be Satvic? It felt like Maya itself had borrowed the word to mask indulgence with illusion, in other words, like harmless or even beautiful, turning spiritual irony into commercial charm. Is it a temple or a theka? Is the shopkeeper a guru or just a man who gets very wise after two or three drinks? Passers-by like me, are bemused. What further stirred me was seeing a tired daily-wage labourer who might have spent the entire day hauling bricks and stones, his body frail, drenched in sweat, the mobile phone tucked in his waist loose wrapped dhoti, looked up at the sign board and mutters to me in Hindi, “Sir, yeh satvic scotch kya hai?” - “Sir, what is this “Satvic Scotch?” I replied, “Probably some Ayurvedic drink that cleanses your karma while fixing your joints!” On this, he rubbed his knuckles and let out a quiet chuckle, “Ah, I have got problems, will try this satvic one today!” With optimism, he stepped inside, expecting something like Kapiva ortho, a magical herbal elixir that would launch him straight into a satvic mission and karmic jolt to rid his aching joints. The shopkeeper handed him a bottle labeled, “spiritually uplifted, aged in silence like a meditating sadhu in a barrel.” He raised an eyebrow, shrugged and muttered, “Well enlightenment has to start somewhere in solace, bottoms up!” Next, he made his way to the tree behind the shop, the spot where kicks in drunken debates and lost wallets are common. He takes a sip, wipes his mouth and looks up at the sky. “Hey Ram! This one hits different!” A few minutes later, he’s passionately explained the meaning of life to a passing cow, opening his pravachan to cricket fans who were watching victory celebrations of RCB at Chinnaswamy stadium on TV, which suddenly grew to mourning of the eleven diehard fans in the stampede. Meanwhile, a dandy, owner of a startup company, adorning a hat, after a hectic day of back-to-back zoom meetings and crushing PPT presentations , checks- in on seeing the sign board, the “Satvic Scotch.” He reads the label of the scotch bottle given by the bartender: “Infused with pranic energy and Himalayan stillness.” His eyebrows rise in delight. “Just, what I need to balance my aura,” he whispers to himself. I took the liberty of sitting beside him during the interlude, and he seemed to enjoy my company. We chatted quietly, drifting into a surprisingly calm conversation about his business deals. For someone who had just been philosophizing with a cow and mourning death of eleven cricket fans, this dandy was oddly composed, nodding thoughtfully, as if closing million dollar deals while still recovering from a spiritually aged sip of Satvic Scotch. The dandy poured another dram into a crystal glass, inhaled its aroma, and took a sip. “Ah… not alcohol, but Atma in liquid form,” he murmured around. By the third peg, something stirred within him, he began texting Bhagavad Gita verses to his wife and his startup team. “Thinking of renaming the company to ‘Ananta (infinite) Capitals,’ infinite returns, infinite vision- he typed, squinting at his mobile screen like a sage staring into cosmic light. Unfazed, his wife replied, “Could your inner awakening find a plumber to fix my leak here?” The two tipplers, one enchanted by the mysterious elixir, beneath a banyan tree, delivering a heartfelt pravachan on the meaning of life to a stray cow; the other, perched on a bar stool, claiming to have touched nirvana while drafting a new name for his startup, and simultaneously texting Bhagavad Gita quotes to wife. From a daily wager chasing a sip after toil to a start up founder chasing valuation and validation, we are all just spirits sipping life spirits decoding life’s one bottle at a time. Let’s admit enlightenment is overrated, if you can’t laugh at your own silly whatsApp forwards, misplaced phones, missing spectacles at least once a day, and still believe the universe is secretly cheering you on. Here is to Satvic Scotch, where karma meets kick and moksha comes bottled, with a hint of oak and irony. Anyway, if fictions can be micro nations - imposter ambassadors of French villages- Seborga and Ladonia surreptitiously functioning in Noida, why not writer’s connoisseur, the piece you read. Cheers! May your inner peace outlive your hangover.

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