Boss, one Old Monk
By: Anuvab Pal
It’s neither political ideology nor cultural legacy, India’s most enduring institution is thelocal booze shops — they were here before us and they will be here long after we’re gone
A couple of weeks ago, I paid tribute to a glorious relic — theBritish Indian club . This week, I pay tribute to a thriving institution that deserves recognition but languishes (of its own choice) in anonymity. You can’t tell by looking at them. They are modest, they are honourable, they shun the limelight, yet they are with us in time of joy and sorrow, in the noon day sun, in the darkest night (especially the latter). As indispensible as Mr. Modi, as necessary as electricity, as popular as Arnab at 10 pm. In the age of offense meted out, offense taken, censoring and the censored, they are the one institution only in the business of spreading bliss. A place that says come to us, whatever your background, forget everything, just bring a little money, and we’ll relieve you. It isn’t the place you are thinking of — don’t go there with your dirty mind — I meant the Indian booze shop.
Whichever part of India you go to, they are easily recognisable. Some signboard that says Royal Stag or Black Dog with variants of the same ad — a group of rich-looking young men looking comfortable in some 1930s Hollywood movie star suit, some sleek apartment with some jazz theme, doing pretty much nothing. The ads say ridiculous things like ‘easy evenings’ or ‘music CDs’ or ‘golf accessories’.
protein shakes , tree barks , megalomania and stupidity to understand the romance of the product they are selling. Again, doesn’t matter. The shop under the signboard doesn’t need the ad. It doesn’t need Twitter or Facebook or Instagram to build its clientele. They are at every street corner. You don’t talk about it, but it’s there. The owner, usually a single proprietor, sits in his shop, looking part smuggler, part AAP volunteer, part Mogambo, and has seen more of the world than Nostradamus. Nothing fazes him and his face says it all — “I’ve seen more battles than have been fought. The mighty and the destitute, the great years and the fallen ones, the secrets and the celebrations, they’ve all come to my doorstep.”
They have more offline followers than all social media and organised religion put together, because they begin their 130-character sermon with one great sentence that just shuts up any competition, “Boss, wine, vodka, beer or whisky? We do home delivery also.”
The place has endured all sorts of indignities over the ages. From the glory days of Bollywood racism when every booze shop owner had to be called Mr. Gomes, to having Bollywood actors play the owners as men with Chaplin hats and hiccups, to bouts of sudden moral policing when some government thinks it can make a populist move by shutting them down. Kerala some years ago responded interestingly to a law MLAs passed to shut down wine shops one hour early. The public raided the assembly and started breaking furniture. No other social issue in that state had caused this much response.
They’ve seen more characters than all fiction combined. In the one near my house, a completely naked homeless man, regularly sozzled, dances at noon shouting, “I am Aamir Khan. Satyamev Jayate,” and doesn’t leave (blocking other customers) till he’s given his daily supply of rum. He assumes several roles in a changing cast of celebrities. This morning he said, “I am Shikhar Dhawan. I’ve had it with Australia.” Another gent shows up and just starts abusing them till they have to open the shop. He returns at night abusing them just when they are about to close. At another near a friends’, a lady who doesn’t want her family to know that she has a problem had invented a fictitious job as a buyer for a 5 star hotel, which went fine till an actual buyer from that 5 star hotel showed up to buy. A story I’d heard in Delhi was that a group regularly raided a wine shop in Gurgaon dressed as policemen, for free booze, before they had parties. They got caught when one of the police uniforms said, “If found, return to the circus.”
The drunk and the sober come. The disguised and ‘proud-to-be-seen buying’ come. All religions come. They’ve done more for communal harmony than any political move, any annoying school children’s cultural festival, any parade; and all this, quietly. They’ve done so because after a few pegs or pints, nobody cares which border ends where and which stone building houses which god.
There will be many that will try to close them. Many will say they are immoral, a den of vice, while others will speak in support. The playwright Bernard Shaw said, “Never trust a man who doesn’t drink.” The point, however, is, like time or the first life form cellular organism, they were here before us and they will be here long after we’re gone, with just two words, ‘Wine shop’ hidden behind the façade of sober society, unmasking our ‘protect traditions’ hypocrisies with their ever increasing daily sales.
It’s neither political ideology nor cultural legacy, India’s most enduring institution is the
A couple of weeks ago, I paid tribute to a glorious relic — the
Whichever part of India you go to, they are easily recognisable. Some signboard that says Royal Stag or Black Dog with variants of the same ad — a group of rich-looking young men looking comfortable in some 1930s Hollywood movie star suit, some sleek apartment with some jazz theme, doing pretty much nothing. The ads say ridiculous things like ‘easy evenings’ or ‘music CDs’ or ‘golf accessories’.
What they mean is booze, but they can’t advertise. It doesn’t matter. The models advertising the stuff are too mired in their laser-shaven smooth bodies and live on diets of
They have more offline followers than all social media and organised religion put together, because they begin their 130-character sermon with one great sentence that just shuts up any competition, “Boss, wine, vodka, beer or whisky? We do home delivery also.”
The place has endured all sorts of indignities over the ages. From the glory days of Bollywood racism when every booze shop owner had to be called Mr. Gomes, to having Bollywood actors play the owners as men with Chaplin hats and hiccups, to bouts of sudden moral policing when some government thinks it can make a populist move by shutting them down. Kerala some years ago responded interestingly to a law MLAs passed to shut down wine shops one hour early. The public raided the assembly and started breaking furniture. No other social issue in that state had caused this much response.
They’ve seen more characters than all fiction combined. In the one near my house, a completely naked homeless man, regularly sozzled, dances at noon shouting, “I am Aamir Khan. Satyamev Jayate,” and doesn’t leave (blocking other customers) till he’s given his daily supply of rum. He assumes several roles in a changing cast of celebrities. This morning he said, “I am Shikhar Dhawan. I’ve had it with Australia.” Another gent shows up and just starts abusing them till they have to open the shop. He returns at night abusing them just when they are about to close. At another near a friends’, a lady who doesn’t want her family to know that she has a problem had invented a fictitious job as a buyer for a 5 star hotel, which went fine till an actual buyer from that 5 star hotel showed up to buy. A story I’d heard in Delhi was that a group regularly raided a wine shop in Gurgaon dressed as policemen, for free booze, before they had parties. They got caught when one of the police uniforms said, “If found, return to the circus.”
The drunk and the sober come. The disguised and ‘proud-to-be-seen buying’ come. All religions come. They’ve done more for communal harmony than any political move, any annoying school children’s cultural festival, any parade; and all this, quietly. They’ve done so because after a few pegs or pints, nobody cares which border ends where and which stone building houses which god.
There will be many that will try to close them. Many will say they are immoral, a den of vice, while others will speak in support. The playwright Bernard Shaw said, “Never trust a man who doesn’t drink.” The point, however, is, like time or the first life form cellular organism, they were here before us and they will be here long after we’re gone, with just two words, ‘Wine shop’ hidden behind the façade of sober society, unmasking our ‘protect traditions’ hypocrisies with their ever increasing daily sales.
