Kids party hard, what goes THEIR fathers' ?

If you or one of your friends threw a Friendship day bash and escaped scot free, consider yourself lucky! The four hundred and ninety odd students at the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies in Pune didn’t have luck on their side Sunday night. They would never have imagined a friendship day party would land them behind the bars! And what was their cardinal crime? That they consumed alcohol!

Well, we shall come to that later. At the moment I’m just wondering if more important things have stopped happening in this country! Or why would an important broadsheet like DNA have this as the prime story of the day- ‘Kids party hard, cops crack the whip’? The story clearly states that there was no evidence of drugs in the party. The students were booked under the ‘Bombay Prohibition Act’ for consuming alcohol. So, let’s have a look at the act then…

“In Maharashtra liquor permit is necessary for the purchase, possession transport, and consumption of liquor. Any person above the age of 25 years is eligible for obtaining the liquor permit for preservation and maintenance of his health. Purchase and drinking without a liquor permit is an offence under Bombay Prohibition Act 1949.” (http://mumbaicity.gov.in/htmldocs/liquor.htm)

Downright archaic and ridiculous! Are they trying to tell me that every person who consumes alcohol in the state of Maharashtra must and does have a liquor permit! What an impracticable and hypocritic piece of crap! If we really began taking this law seriously, half of Mumbai’s police force would have to be deployed to nab the offenders. And if I as a woman can choose my life partner at 18, I can definitely make a choice about consuming alcohol without the state’s interference.

I don’t see why then the news of students partying at a farmhouse in Pune is all over the media. What is so sensational about a big bunch of girls celebrating their friendship somewhere? Is partying illegal in India? When any incident of a rave party was totally ruled out, why did the national media have to play up the story? On what basis does it make a story anyway? What would it do to the future of these students if the college takes action against them, which is quite likely to happen. Or…is it just the brazen fact that girls in above-the-knee length dresses( as clear by the photographs) partying and consuming alcohol doesn’t go down well with the so-called sentinels of Indian culture ?!