The Morning After… A Hangover Story

Bhisham Mansukhani speaks to few people who have been there, downed that, and gone on to endure the inebriate’s worst nightmare - the hangover

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.” “And why not, darling?” the father asked. “You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

That puerile assessment is little under bleak advice for the booze-delighting who would much rather leave out the headache episode until the next round of drinks, and no, this isn’t about morning sickness. It’s like infinitesimal wildebeests stampeding the guilty head, angry bile spewing punishment from inside an overworked and underpaid liver and a mouth drier than a bone under the sun and of course, a misplaced sense of depression over the plight of table spoons.

Abstinence is too cliche a preach to meet the bleary-eyed epicureans, smarting and suffering from the spoils of the night before. They’ll just belch “Sort (euphemism) off” and down a customary draft of beer and endure what they don’t need to deserve. So what proceeds textually isn’t a comatose chiding from the good doctor next door nor proscriptions doled out by the pious prophets of doom. Nay, have a drink, have another one for the road and another one for every road there is - help is at hand and it’s not Satan at the other end of the key board whose extending it. It’s those who drink to the road and the other finer things of life and have hung out the hangover to dry.

“True,” insists Yohann Sethna, director operations, Sidewalk restaurant, “It doesn’t have to be that bad. Want a cure to a hangover, have a ‘Bloody Mary’ with an added raw egg. No kidding, a really spicy version of the cocktail, containing an acidic tomato juice does wonders. Another way to ditch a hangover before hand is to let it all out - lug a toothbrush down your throat and induce the excesses to spill out. Puking is not a pretty job and worse, it makes you hungry as hell but I’ve relied on it and felt a whole lot better.”

Sethna also proffers a monogamy of another sort (he does practice it in the literal sense too). “I drink ‘Jack Daniels’ only and have developed a taste and resistance level so sticking to a single spirit is a good idea.” Sethna also recommends good quality vodka drunk neat or on the rocks (only in an emergency), as a guarantor against a nasty ramification, “Since it is as pure if not better than distilled water, given the kind of filtration process it is put through”. He is quick to warn against cocktails other than ‘Bloody Mary’ since these are a mix of soda, juice and more than one spirit and one is likely to susceptible to have more than one and worse still, not the same one!

Executive chef for Mumbai’s Olive Bar and Kitchen, Evan Gwynne concurs on the ‘Bloody Mary’. “Yes, the dependable cocktail or a watermelon juice works perfectly. And stay away from that aspirin,” she says.

Heeded to or otherwise, a few other than veteran guzzlers can be relied on for hangover remedy. One such is the quintessential agent of good times - the bartender. Kapil Semwal alias Sem is a food and beverage executive at the Velvet Lounge, the newly operative lounge bar at the Renaissance Mumbai Hotel and Convention Centre, Powai, whose essential responsibility is to satiate another form of spiritual pursuit and he immediately disagrees with Sethna. “Cocktails, contrary to popular myth, do not cause hangovers. Injudicious mixing and matching wines and spirits is the chief culprit for inflicting hangovers. If one fuses a mature spirit like a whisky which is fermented and distilled with beer which is merely fermented, it is a plain invitation to trouble.” Nevertheless Sem is empathetic to his boozy clientele who, occasionally climb higher than they should. “When I find some folks holding their heads without being able to look up, I know they are in trouble. I instantly encourage them to visit the washroom and on some occasions, escort them myself. Another remedy is to drink lots of cold water to tackle the dehydration, which causes that urge to vomit and maybe trying some aperitifs which are basically a combination of a bitter base with soda. Restraint, he suggests, is the best cure. Well, try telling that to an irascible dipsomaniac and the morning after will entail pain with or without the booze.”

All right then, it calls for an opportune moment to introduce a formerly irascible dipsomaniac (in patches). Dilnaz Boga (DB), a former journalist, now studying in Sydney, might have put some of her more merrier days behind her but lucidly remembers how she dealt with each of their aftermaths. “A hot shower and plenty of ‘nimbu paani’ and bread because it soaks all the alcohol from the system,” DB proclaims. In inimitably indulgent style, DB confesses that she did take the easy way out with a ritualistic beer.

General practitioner Dr Mahesh Sompura inevitably insinuates forbearance. “Drinking should be abstained from in order to nip the problem in the bud. If that is not possible for whatever reason, in the case of a hangover, the cure is relative to the condition the patient is encountering. If the hangover is made apparent more by a blistering headache, then a paracetamol is a better alternative to aspirin because the latter can exacerbate gastritis which a lot of people are vulnerable to.

Also, though cold water is not usually healthy, it is intrinsic to flush out a hangover as warm water can only worsen a condition of gastritis. People who ordinarily suffer from hyperacidity should take antacids.”

Points taken, seriously. Summarily, there are two contrasting perspectives that approach a hangover. For some, prevention is better than cure and for the rest of the living world, prevention is worse than cure. This sort of resounding endorsement is perhaps what this trifling compilations of enlightenments need. What yours truly needs is a drink or three and a bottle of beer for overnight posterity. Cheers, discretion is optional.