All clear!

India visits always involve more lunch and dinner invitations from friends and family than my poor stomach can handle. Though I'd like to pretend that it's a chore to go eat all that good food, the truth is, I gladly suffer the indigestion in exchange for goodies I will never make or eat in the US.

On one such occasion, we were all over at my uncle & aunt's for lunch, and had finished packing in an ungodly spread. Post lunch - pre coma conversation was ongoing when my Grandmum announced that it was the worst Bangalore summer yet, and that she needed a drink of water.

So off she went to the table near the refrigerator where all the bottles had been placed. If it were me, I'd have just glugged from the bottle, but she did the decent thing and poured herself a glass, and remarked disappointedly that it wasn't cold since it had been out for a while. We all resumed talking, and a second later, there was an agonized squeaking, and we all turned around to see my grandmother shove the house-help away from the sink and spit a whole mouthful of water out.

Once that was done, she sagged against the counter and said..."AIYO! My mouth and throat are on fire!! What was that!?". Turned out, she'd just downed half a glass of Gin, neat.

Her first reaction when she realized what she'd done was to say.."UGH! You people drink this by choice? Mad."

Now, any time she says anything remotely conservative sounding, we let her know that she's joined the ranks of us degenerate alcoholics, so this kind of hypocritical attitude isn't going to fly. She's such a sport though..she laughs harder than the rest of us put together. :)