Longing for a draught of vintage, the poet conjured up a full beaker with beaded bubbles winking at the brim. And all for the desire to fade far away with the nightingale’s song. In these distinctly unpoetic times, it is not birdsong that inspires the insatiable thirst for the poet’s blushful Hippocrene, but enforced abstinence induced by a lockdown for which a threatening virus is responsible. The acuteness of the longing for life-giving drink in prosaic reality, though, far outstrips the poet’s — he only imagined it — because, the moment liquor shops were opened in selected areas after 40 days, people queued up for hours, some even wisely accepting that all good things come to those who wait. Thirst, though, does not always care for wisdom’s counsel. So in most places in many states, the dream of the beaded bubble overtook caution: people threw ideas of social distancing to the winds, resulting in scenes of frantic police personnel trying to coerce them into safety and in shops hurriedly downing shutters. The aridity of the lockdown deserved a drop or two of the kindly flow, but over-excitement on the first day of the reopening, in many cases, defeated the purpose.

While the police continue their struggle to keep hopeful customers at a safe distance from one another however long the queues, the states have at last seen a substantial flow — not liquid — into their exchequers. Even the first chaotic day earned the state coffers crores that the governments were thirsty for. Pious aims to cure people of drinking by increasing the price of liquor, reportedly 75 per cent in Andhra Pradesh for example, or 70 per cent as Covid-19 cess in Delhi, have brought state governments suitable rewards. High prices are no discouragement. No doubt rewards for the thirsty, although metaphysical rather than material, are as rich in value — transient freedom from fear, a blissful forgetting of cares, a passing sense of strength and ruddy health, dreamless sleep.

Accompanying the widespread elation, of course, is the fear among all administrations of a surge in the novel coronavirus infection because of the unchecked crowding in liquor shops. There are tensions among customers too, when they discover that people from containment zones have slipped out to join their queue. The Supreme Court’s direction that states should consider indirect sales by allowing home delivery of liquor, therefore, was welcome. That would at least thin the crowds and lessen the possibility of an uncontrollable spread of infection. But popular beliefs about the efficacy of liquor override such grave considerations. If alcohol-based sanitizers kill the virus, why not drink instead, feel the incorrigibly optimistic tipplers. It sanitizes the bloodstream, said one convinced gentleman: the virus would not have a chance. He and his compatriots are offering a solution far more pleasurable than the one offered by the American president. Liquor is much nicer than disinfectants injected into the body.