All I wanted to say was, your perceptions change when the issues affect you directly.

Try the same liberal logic and reasoning and PC thinking about the harmless drinking culture when someone opens an ILLEGAL bar next to your house, people blocking your driveway with unplanned parking, vomiting on your lawn, shouting and screaming at 2 AM.
and if you protest peacefully, the greedy bar-owner and his apathatic patrons use media and the support of overseas progressive thinkers like you and have the audacity to call a bunch of vagrants, TALIBAN!

meanwhile, the government and “Superpower’ crazed city planners are so eager to make your city the silicon valley of India that they have not bothered to plan development and handle the growth.

When the locals are stomped over like this, some people take matter into their hands and offer a horrible/messy vigilante justice. The media and people like you are happy as long as Hindus(the conservative types) have to be made fun of and painted as villians. As long as the sentiments of the minorites are preserved, we can take a piss on the rest of India right?

Well, I am from Bangalore. The Mangaloreans I know said that there was more to the story than how it was spun by the media. I am definitely not condoning whatever happened to the customers. Violence is not the answer. Close-mindedness is never right whether it is practised by a conservatiseor a liberal.

btw there are many legal bars in Bangalore and Mangalore. Surprizingly, the ” hindu taliban” never attacks businesses that follow rules and regulations. I wonder why?

Anyway, I have read a few articles (mostly cricket ones). You keep ranting about Bengal being treated as a soft target byDelhi and Mumbai. If you were not a Bengali you would see how biased your views on Karnataka are.

I apologize for not being clear headed while posting.

To all the people attacking Smitha, I ask this.
The GOOD people that you quote as examples would have been decent even if they hadn’t taken a single drink in their lives or worn short skirts? Right?

So, lets leave dress code out of the debate.
The poster who quotes health benefits of drinking? Wow! Seriously? Do you think that’s why all those tweens go to bars? To have a healthy heart?

Shall I quote statistics on drunk-driving, date rapes, brawls and other issues ?
Lets just give a second and think how police force that has to be catching terrorists (as the author so cleverly reminds us) are wasting their time trying to bring in law and order whenever the harmless party-goers go nuts?

Do you guys seriously believe that those hooligans (taliban? Yeah right!) would have done that if the bar was legal and it was filled with
decent peoeple like your moms and dads who know when to stop drinking, how to choose a designated driver and follow basic human ethics ( NOT to ever take advantage of a person who is under the influence of alchohol?)

Get this straight! HONORABLE elites in the drinking club are grossly outnumbered by reckless hypocrites masquerading as progressive thinkers.

This issue is not just “a bunch of sex-starved uneducated right wingers attacking peaceful liberal bar-hoppers” like the media portrays it. If that’s what you think it is then you guys are not the objective thinkers you claim to be.

You guys could have just corrected her misplaced idea about “pure and morally rich Indian woman and Indian culture”. Instead, you are taking her comments personally. For every positive responsible drinker, I can cite 10 examples where families have broken apart because of substance abuse.
Please don’t act as if alchohol abuse is not a possibility among pub hoppers.
After all, it takes one extra drink for even the most responsible drinker to get a DUI.

Smitha, I think you got a bit carried away with the ‘sharaafat’ talk. Those girls have rights too. The guys have actually broken the law here.
Also, if parents are worried about their kids’ evening life, they should have a talk with them about the ill effects of drinking, set a curfew. etc.
Vigilante Moral policing should never be encouraged.

Sorry to say this but it is people like you that foster such evil/ violent thoughts on values/culture etc..

My parents, both avid party-goers, are easily one of the best that anyone could have. A good parent is one who can balance things out and not necessarily one who believes in abstinence. My mom doesn’t drink anything other than wine (that too because its good for the heart) and is a wonderful mother. One who is open to ideas and opinions contrary to her school of thought as well. She wears westerns mainly not bceause she is ashamed to be Indian but because she is comfortable in them and can carry them of without that oh-I’m-trying-to-look-sixteen kind of an attitude.

I have always found it appalling that many people like you think the way you do. We live in a globalized society where the key is to remain open to things. Being open doesn’t mean you conform to ideas/norms you are not comfortable with; you just don’t enforce your opinions on others. Worse even in the Mangalore case, go about barbarically beating up women. *&^*^$ those B#$@%2! Yes I can abuse, and that doesn’t make me culturally deprived. I reserve it for likes of Muthalik.

Please for your sake and your children.. have an open mind and learn to respect individuality or else you will not be any better a mother than ‘those pub-going, mini skirted women’ you refer to with much Bharatiya nari chauvenism.

“Drinking has been part of our culture forever and ever. If I don’t drink, I risk offending our hallowed traditions!”.

Actually, it has been. Hindu scriptures are rife with events and incidents involving liqour, the consequences of which hav eoften been pprtrayed as being negative.
Many traditions and rituals also involve intoxications as part of an individual’s spiritual elevation.

“Personally I knew I’d never marry a woman who was a teetotaler or a vegetarian. And I didn’t. I guess my kid will turn out to be a serial killer or something – according to Smitha. Wish I’d known that before…”

I doubt if Smita went as far as you attribute her to be. There is no doubt that drunk parents do effect young minds. Nevertheless, your kid might turn out to be a serial killer even if he didnt touch booze

Most people I know love drinking as I do. Some can’t taste even a drop. Same with non-veg and vegetarian food. Doesn’t mean I should try and turn them into drinkers and meat eaters, or they should try and convert me to their philosophy, right.

As for the “drinking is bad” meme, it’s a total fallacy. Eating sugar is also bad. How much and how frequently is the problem – and that depends on the the individual.

Personally I knew I’d never marry a woman who was a teetotaler or a vegetarian. And I didn’t. I guess my kid will turn out to be a serial killer or something – according to Smitha. Wish I’d known that before…