Julius Caesar made sure that every new venture had the blessings of Janus. The Roman god represented new beginnings. Janus had two faces on a single head, looking in opposite directions, one representing the past and the other, future. The two faces sometimes conveyed contradictory cues. Caesar believed that you cannot have a bright future by forgetting and erasing your past .
Consider this. Meeting a girlfriend — only a metaphor — is ok and healthy. But if you meet her too often, it might make a few heads turn, at least in conservative Trivandrum. Initially, you feel shy announcing her presence to your friends and family, but in course of time everyone comes to know. Over time the inhibition goes away, and it becomes a fashion statement, you don't feel ashamed of being noticed with your acquaintance, in fact you flaunt her. Finally, it ends up as an obsession and you feel you cannot live without her. The friend we are talking about here is alcohol addiction .
My friend's brother was a software engineer, just out of college, was selected in a campus interview for a job that gave him Rs. 50, 000 as a starting salary. Alcohol got into his life subtly, it started as a relaxation at weekends, became a stress relief-buster in the evenings. Over time alcohol crawled from the kitchen fridge into his bedroom cupboard and finally into his car boot. He was a careful driver, but with a blood alcohol level of 110 mg%, three times higher than permissible, his brain failed to react to an on-coming lorry, and did not know what hit him. At the casualty he told me: “Believe me, I had decided to stop drinking from tomorrow.” That tomorrow never came, he died at midnight. That was December 31, 2001.
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In December 2010, Keralites consumed alcohol from the beverage corporation worth Rs.597 crore, and of that Rs. 32 crore was spent on December 31 alone. That new year night, alcohol-related injuries, from traffic accidents to street brawls, from fall in bathrooms to drowning in swimming pools, increased by 700 per cent.
Serving and drinking alcohol may enhance your social status, make you de-stress after a hard day's work. It may also help you forget your painful past, but often, without your realisation, will systematically destroy your future. Two faces. Just like Janus.
1st Day of 45 BC. Julius Caesar inaugurated the new calendar, and aptly named the first month of the year January, after Janus, the God with two faces.
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(The writer is Head, Department of Cardiology, PRS Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram. His email ID is: tinynair@gmail.com)