Irish: Indians can’t hold their drink
While dozens of families in India are in mourning due to the deaths of over 70 people from alcohol poisoning, hordes of Irish 18-30 year olds are boarding planes at Dublin Airport to ‘show them how its done’.
Last year, 170 Indians died from alcohol poisoning and just recently, the city of Gujarat hit the news when it was reported that 71 people had been killed by toxic alcohol, but, fresh from booking a two week ‘Alcoholiday’, 24 year-old Dubliner Rory O’Connor told Oxygen that was part of the appeal. “You hear of these lads booking adventure holidays and all that. You know, three weeks climbing a mountain, sleeping in tents, shitting in the woods. That’s for pussies. This is the real deal. Death at your doorstep drinking, it’s going to be some buzz.”
When pushed on what exactly he planned on doing in India, O’Connor’s response was emphatic, “I’m going to get mashed, simple as. Dying from drinking? What a load of bollocks. A few years ago – on a J1 – I was working 12 hours on a building site, then out on the lash straight away then back in work. No sleeping, no eating and barely time for a shower, I stank. It was quality.”
In an attempt to capitalize on the trend, Michael O’Leary announced plans for Ryanair to fly to an area ‘just outside Gujarat’, in fact the flights land in Dhaka, in the neighboring Bangladesh, several hours by car and boat from Gujarat. “We can barely keep up with the demand,” he said at a press conference, while dressed as Apu from The Simpsons. Reports that booking confirmation emails read ‘Thank you. Come Again.’ had yet to be substantiated at the time of going to press.
Just married Mark and Aine McGrath have taken the extraordinary step of cancelling their original honeymoon plans in favour of an Indian summer. Mark said, “We’ve been lucky so far with the recession – I’m a banker – so we can make this sacrifice, and I believe it’s for the good of the country. There hasn’t been much to celebrate in Ireland recently, but no matter how bad things get, we’ll always know how to drink, and that should be celebrated. We’re going over there for the time of our lives, and we don’t want to remember a thing!”
Last night, as Ryanair and other airlines were being inundated with bookings from Irish passengers, the HSE issued a severe health warning, advising Irish citizens not to travel to India. Meanwhile, the Department of Finance was hurriedly trying to rush though a new Indian Travel tax bill which would see the Irish Government benefiting from the trend. A source close to Minister Brian Lenihan said, “He doesn’t give a shit about what they’re doing in India or what state they’re left in afterwards, he just wants to get his hands on some of that cash.”
Gurajat is the only dry state in India, hence the amount of illegal and fatal independent brewing which takes place, but this still hasn’t deterred Irish passengers, as Mark McGrath says, “Everyone I’ve spoken to seems to have the same idea and that is, even if we have to swim up the Ganges with barrels of ‘Ken and Bulmers strapped to our backs, we’re going to have a mad one. That’s the Irish way. See you in a few weeks.”
Robert Hogan