The Party Has Begun (or, What Could Possibly Happen To Maharashtra after an Alcohol Ban)

Reports have surfaced about the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, making certain comments about the evaluation of the viability of banning alcohol in India. People aren’t happy – he may want to wait to see how well the three districts in Maharashtra (Chandrapur, Gadchiroli and Wardha) that have already banned alcohol are faring, but most are already up-in-arms.

On the other hand, why not embrace this?

Let’s ban alcohol, and enjoy the revival of underground bars and bootleggers. Maybe we can see what India can do – I’m sure there will be a lot of authors struggling to write an Indian version of The Great Gatsby, at least.

Mahaan Mahesh – the story of a young bootlegger who had it all, but wanted more.

Okay, maybe that sounds horrible. But literary pursuits can never be boring, and if there’s no free-flowing alcohol in this state, then we’re going to need plenty of entertainment.

*

Imagine finishing work early one weekend: You sign out of your work email with a flourish before turning around to look at your colleagues. You stretch, grinning. It’s been a hard week.

“Let’s grab a drink,” you begin to say, before stopping and looking uncertainly at the people in front of you.

You can’t go ‘grab a drink’ anymore.

Your mind recalls hazy headlines in newspapers, and tweets written with capital letters about liquor being banned in the state of Maharashtra. You keep trying to repress the memory, but at times like this, you’re faced with the ugly truth.

You can’t have liquor in the state of Maharashtra. Seedy bars of your youth have become ‘family restorants’ and your ‘corner wala’ now sells Frooti.

The world is bleak, my friend, very bleak.

Suddenly, you hear a soft cough, and someone in the back of the group (it might be the office joker, it might be that shy girl who finishes her work on time, it might be that guy who smokes a little too much – you’re not sure) speaks up. “Guys,” they say, voice hushed, looking nervous. “I heard of a… place.”

Hope blossoms in your chest, and the group decides to follow this lead – this meagre source of a bright solution to parched problems. “It’s in Lower Parel,” your new best buddy says softly, and all of you eagerly agree to board Western Line trains despite the promise of office workers and rush hour madness.

You all know what’s more important.

At Lower Parel, you reach an innocuous-looking bookstore, and everybody stares at it doubtfully. If this is a prank, it’s not a good one, you think miserably.

But your friend enters the store and leads all of you to the non-fiction section, and you come to stop in front of an ‘out of order’ sign, and a bathroom door. Faintly, you can smell the typical scents connected to a public bathroom, and you wrinkle your nose. You can see that your other colleagues are beginning to regret this entire venture.

Your friend, however, with some sense of grim determination, leads the way into the loo, and… opens a small cupboard filled with pocha and phenyl. “Wha-” you begin to say, but your friend holds their hand up, and you stop.

Can it be? The group leans forward as one, and the soft strains of old Dev Anand songs come wafting into the air.

Encouraged, you walk into the ‘cupboard’ and push the back wall, which gives way and shows a small (really, really small) corridor. Everybody squeezes into it recklessly (jokes are passed about those extra vada pavs at lunch), and shuffles forward, then down a flight of stairs, while the music grows louder and louder…

It’s beautiful.

You walk into a room, vaguely conscious of the fact that you’re possibly in some sort of basement or dungeon, and you take a deep breath.

“Gin!” a colleague says delightedly, and everybody makes their way to a semi-circular bar, set on the side of a warm room decorated to look like a speak easy from old Prohibition Era Hollywood movies.

In one corner, a large system plays Dev Anand songs while patrons (studiously avoiding the faces of every stranger in the room) sit comfortably at tables and drink merrily.

A young woman comes towards you with a beam, ushering your group to a table. “Welcome,” she says warmly, before fishing out a sheaf of papers from her pocket and handing them over.

A waiter discreetly waves for her, and the girl – she owns this place, you realize with a shock – turns to him. “Call me when you’ve signed,” she says, disappearing.

Nonplussed, you unfold the papers and scan the words printed neatly in front of you.

“It’s a non-disclosure agreement,” you say softly, wonder in your voice.

“What are the terms?”

You read through the document, but you already know what you’re being asked to do.

“Keep things quiet, and be a regular member,” you finally say, handing over the document to the group. It gets passed around before reaching you again.

With some sort of unspoken agreement, you and your colleagues sign the document solemnly, after which it is whisked away quickly by the smiling proprietor.

“How old are you?” You ask curiously, stopping her in her tracks.

“Old enough,” she says cheerfully. Later, from a waiter, you learn that college students and young entrepreneurs had turned to bootlegging sprits from neighbouring states and setting up illegal resto-bars after the liquor ban in Maharashtra.

“We don’t like to think of it as ‘illegal’, though,” the waiter says, plying you with whiskey (god, you’ve missed this) and sounding more like an MBA grad than a typical waiter. “It’s just good business. And we’re creating jobs.”

He doesn’t say more, and you realize that the quiet efficiency of the wait-staff is underscored by alert tension.

What they’re doing is dangerous.

But you swig your whiskey and make up your mind to return, because it’s better than the alternative.

Sure, you may get found out, and you may go to jail. But the ‘bar’ does a good job of creating a sense of calm. You feel lulled into a sense of security and complacency – how many such bars can the police raid anyway?

“If one exists,” you mutter to the table, “there must be thousands around the city.”

Your words are met with agreement, and you eye the manager, her hair drawn into a ponytail. You imagine her quietly paying off police inspectors and IAS men.

It’s just good business.