Slice of life in the City Beautiful

OFF-TRACK

Amitabh Shukla

It has now been almost two month since I moved to the City Beautiful – Chandigarh. What amazes me here is the facility extended by the government to those who love their drink. You can easily find a liquor shop every 100 meters in the city. If you are dying of thirst in the humid and sultry conditions and want to desperately buy bottled water, you will have to traverse half the city to find a shop and you will be lucky to get a brand of your choice.

But the guzzlers of Beer are spoilt for choice. So the youth simply do not drink water in the hot and humid conditions. They merrily go to the nearest booze shop and purchase a bottle of chilled Beer. Keeping alive the tradition of the city, even the tourists indulge themselves with Beer to beat the heat instead of water, which in any case is largely available only at the railway station and the inter-state bus terminals. In this “Green city”, only those travelling by buses and trains drink water, others prefer Beer during the day time and hard liquor in the evenings.

Having travelled to a lot of places in the country and also to a few places which are considered a paradise for drinkers, I did not find any other place, except Nepal which was so “booze friendly”. Here, the city administration goes all out to give a helping hand to the tipplers.

Even the booze shopkeepers and their neighboring shops have become innovative, something rarely seen in other places. For the first time, I found a shop, specializing in selling “drinking accessories”. This was located next to a busy shop selling all sorts of whisky, Beer, Wine, Vodka, Rum, Brandy and what not.

Curiosity got better of me and I examined the shop selling “drinking accessories”. The shop had a list of all the “accessories” used for drinking – soda, ice cube, plastic glasses, peanuts, mixtures, cold drinks of all variety, bottled water, even cigarette for those who smoke while drinking. The shop next to it was selling another drinking accessory, widely used in this part of the country – Tandoori Kukkad (chicken) and all its variants like Afghani chicken and the Tikkas if one was careful of the bones while gulping liquor.

So the list of “drinking accessories” was complete. Booze lovers, some of them fresh from their office or shop going to have their first drink of the evening and others in different levels of intoxication, were coming and purchasing the drink and the “accessories”. There was a business for everyone associated with the drinks and selling the actual stuff and the accessories. The guy selling ready-made clothes and the one selling stationary, were only watching with envy the business generated by their neighbor.

The patronizing hand of government is there everywhere. In the City Beautiful, liquor is perhaps cheapest in the entire country. It is 25 to 40 per cent cheaper (depending on the brand) than Delhi. Even the neighbouring Punjab and Haryana cannot compete with Chandigarh in liquor price.

Then, in Chandigarh, the city government implements the Master Plan religiously. Business can be carried out only from the notified areas. But the rule is not applicable for the booze shops. It can be set-up anywhere in the city. Temporary structures, selling liquor have sprung up all across the city, particularly on the outskirts and what is known as the southern sectors.

To facilitate such shops and increase their business, “Taverns” have opened. Again, they sell all “drinking accessories” right from glasses, water, soda to Tandoori Kukkad. All you have to do is buy your brand from the shop, flash the bottle in the Tavern and order all the dishes available in the air-conditioned make-shift “Taverns”. One can sit as long as one wants if one has ordered anything from the menu. Even drunken brawls are allowed here, provided it does not warrant the presence of the police and has not turned too violent.

Some of them are quite innovative with the names. A liquor shop has been named “The World of Whiskies” and the “Tavern” next to it in a posh sector called “Whisky Thieves”. But you cannot steal whisky from the shop and drink it in the “tavern” close by. It has one rule. If you place order worth a minimum of Rs 400 from the kitchen, you can sit in the AC hall. If you place an order of a lesser amount, then you will have to do with the non-AC hall. But the irony was that none of those drinking merrily actually realised after a couple of pegs whether they were sitting in an AC or a non AC hall.

The lovers of Bacchus never had it so good, in any part of the country, except perhaps Goa where Beer and hard liquor is available in every second shop. But the “reputation” of Chandigarh is growing and the old residents of the city think that it can easily beat Goa provided the government gave them some more help like reducing the excise further and permitting drinking in public places.

What has come as a dampener which is otherwise a paradise for the lovers of “the daughter of grapes” is the drive against drunken driving, launched by the Chandigarh Police in recent days. The drunkards simply can’t believe that driving after drinking is an offence. Reeking of liquor and driving late night on the city streets, these “gentlemen” and “Gentlewomen” were shocked when the police impounded their license and told them to call home and get a sober person to drive them home. “I get sober and become normal only after three pegs,” one of them told the police.

“If there is paradise on earth (for us), it is here. It is here. It is here,” exclaimed a 30-something person, on a high after gulping down half a bottle of whisky with his favorite “drinking accessory”. He did not remember who had written it but vividly remembers the inconvenience of drinking in several cities and the ease of it in the “city beautiful”. He has another motto – “Live here, drink here and die here”.

His friend, who had gulped down the other half of the whisky bottle, was listening to the conversation, nodded in agreement.

(July 28, 2011)