‘Bar bar dekho’: Why Kolkata and Mumbai offered most fertile ground for watering holes in India
A Malayali friend joked that the state song of Kerala should be ‘Bar, Bar Dekho, Hazar Bar Dekho…’. Punning on the word ‘Bar’ she would make fun of the Keralite love for liquor. I remembered the song during a short visit to London last week seeing the thousands of (‘hazar’) pubs around the city. Pubs were always a defining feature of British culture or for that matter of the entire United Kingdom (UK). But now hundreds of hip new bars have come up alongside the traditional watering holes. I was told that the British economy has now become highly dependent on foreign tourists and students coming from overseas. While older people may still visit pubs for their retro-character and the sense of history that they evoke, the younger set like places that are more hip and happening. With that comes the fancy price tags. So drinking in London has gotten hugely expensive since I was there last before the pandemic brought travelling to a halt.
A friend enticed me to visit one such trendy bar in Shoreditch at the East End of London. That was again an education for me because, from my past experience, I did not associate anything fashionable with the East side of the city. Formerly a working class district, Shoreditch has been subject to considerable gentrification with many creative and service industries like law firms and investment banks moving to that area. Former industrial buildings have been converted to offices and flats. It has a buzzing dining and entertainment scene with eclectic restaurants, clubs, gastro-pubs, artisan coffee shops and galleries.
The place we went to is called Tayer + Elementary. One listing of “The World’s 50 Great Bars” has placed it at Number 2. I cannot vouch for the ranking, not having visited either the first or any of the other forty-eight in the list, but certainly the prices, as expected, were over the top. I had thus far heard of molecular gastronomy but at Tayer, I learnt about a forensic approach to cocktail making using lesser-known ingredients with high-tech equipment to deliver new flavour experiences. However, to be fair, the cocktails were exotic and the bar snacks innovative. The Timur (Sichuan) Pepper One Shot Martini that my companion had was truly outstanding and the smoky Mezcal — though sans kumquat and worm salt — was worth every sip at 30 pounds a shot.
On the small plates, the Edamame and Green Peas Hummus with Mexican Dukkah and Mini Pappadums was brilliant and the Ikura (Roe of Salmon), Nori, Mulato Oil, Creme Fraiche on Crumpets was easily the classiest accompaniment I had at a bar. So, even if the evening set us back by almost two hundred pounds, we did not regret the experience.
However, what I found most interesting about Tayer + Elementary is the setting. One of the reviews describes it as an ‘industrially styled street-side space, the everyday bar you pop into for a quick drink’. Another writes, “The venue appears as a brutalist space with concrete and exposed steel trunking.” The owners themselves say, “The emphasis is on the liquid (rather than the space).” The last is what, in my book, all good bars ought to be. The decor should provide the ambience for conversation without distracting from the drinks.
Sitting at Tayer and Elementary, I remembered two of my own favourite bars in India — the Janata Bar at Pali Naka, Bandra, Mumbai and Shaw’s Bar, popularly known as Chota Bristol, in Dharmatala, Kolkata on the narrow lane next to the now shut iconic Metro Cinema. Chota Bristol has an iconic status, while Janata Bar though of more recent vintage has the makings of becoming a modern legend. Though geographically thousands of miles apart and separated by zillions of light years in the socio-economic universe, I thought both these bars shared the same ‘everyday’ character. That was also the common denominator of the pubs in the UK.
In my view, for pub or bar culture to take roots a city has to have either an industrial or a creative base. The combination of the two makes it even more potent. Think of countries in the West — Germany was an industrial nation, France more creative and England a combination of both. America was split between the cities. While on the one side, there was New York with its financial and creative crowd, on the other were industrial cities like Detroit. Now, the technology industry in the west coast is creating a hybrid culture of industry and technology. Japan was predominantly industrial but in recent times the creative industry is also catching up.
Coming back to India, Kolkata and Mumbai provided the most fertile ground for the proliferation of watering holes. Mumbai was constrained by prohibition for a long time till the ‘Permit Rooms’ mushroomed. Though the old mills and factories shut down, it continued to remain a commercial centre with a large working population. So it has bars dotted all over the city particularly along the local train routes. The special feature of Mumbai bars is reasonably priced drinks with excellent value for money snacks — especially seafood. The fried pomfret, mandali (a close cousin of anchovies), bombil (Bombay Duck) and prawns satiates the appetite, while quenching thirst, before the long commute back home.
Bandra has emerged as the new centre of town where the creative and the corporate converge. This is best reflected in the clientele of Janata Bar — which has a delectable mix of young professionals along with the middle-class working gentry. This is also apparent in the range of liquor available from high-end single malts, blended scotch, gin, vodka, premium beers to basic IMFL (Indian Made Foreign Liquor). What makes Janata unique is this egalitarian quality. But there are many more across the length and breadth of what is arguably India’s only cosmopolitan metropolis.
Kolkata sadly is a shrinking city both intellectually and commercially. Along with industry, many of the related professions like advertising have moved base. Once the hub of media, the epicentre of news has shifted to Delhi. The Bengali film industry is in dire shape and contemporary Bengali literature is a pale shadow of the past. The fabled ‘addas’ in coffee houses and bars of central Calcutta and Park Street are now confined only to old novels and cinema.
In this diminishing milieu, Shaw’s Bar stands as a lonely mascot of the past. Unlike Janata Bar, Shaw’s or Chota Bristol is still a men’s only bar. But it has a far wider spectrum of customers and on a regular day it is tough to find a seat unless a bearer squeezes you into a table by requesting the other guests. But once allowed entry, all barriers dissolve and you are sucked into a vociferous debate on topics ranging from politics to poetry. At Shaw’s, you pay for each drink or order at a time and there is no system of presenting a bill at the end. The bar itself does not serve any food. But it allows street vendors who line up outside to walk in with an array of snacks in small plates made of sal leaves on a tray — which customers pick up putting cash back on the tray. The bar-eats may not be as nouvelle as what we had in London but all — be it the Green Guava Chaat or Mutton Liver Kosha — have a trademark quality.
At the risk of offending readers from the other metros — Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai — I would assert they lacked the dual genes of industry and creativity for developing a bar ecosystem. After the IT industry and few corporate headquarters moved to Bangalore in the late eighties, it got the pubs. It has become a hub of education in recent years — but it was never an industrial city in the true sense. As far as alcohol imbibing intellectuals and the creative lot went, Koshy’s was good enough to take them all. Chennai was always conservative. As far as Delhi goes — the old joke about it not being able to find three wise men for Christmas — holds true for bars as well.
I once took a visiting academic friend from Boston to Janata Bar with a lot of build-up. She was blown off her feet by the electric atmosphere of the place and wanted to have a cigar. Those days smoking was still allowed in bars but this was probably the first time anyone, that too a woman, had asked for a cigar. Not daunted, the bearer darted out like a bullet and dashed back in no time with a cheap cigarillo from the pan-shop next door. She was all game to try it. Seeing her looking for a match box, three other guests from the adjacent tables sprung up to offer her a light.
Highly pleased with the puffs, she checked if they had wine. The boy immediately produced a bottle of Indian Shiraz. The only problem was they did not have a wine glass. Always a sport, she settled for a water tumbler — saying it was fashionable in some circles abroad to drink wine out of ordinary glasses. But, in his excitement, the boy poured half the bottle into the glass. Realising his mistake, he went to the kitchen and returned with a plastic funnel and started to pour the wine back. Seeing that she was a bit startled, he reassured her that the funnel was used only for alcohol. He explained that sometimes after ordering a full bottle, guests were not able to drink all of it. Then they like to carry home the leftover liquor packed in small nip bottles. For that, the bar kept a funnel handy. As we were stepping out — pleased with his tip and seeing us happy — the boy ventured to ask my friend if she would be back on new year’s eve. Not wanting to break his heart, she told him that she was going back home but, looking at me, said maybe I will bring someone more interesting. Will keep that story for another day. Cheers.
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Originally published at https://www.newindianexpress.com.
