You’ve just finished a hard day’s work late in the evening and need to unwind desperately. You head out to one of the city’s watering holes and get there at 10:30. You order your drink and tap your dancing feet to the music. By the time you’ve finished your first one it’s already time to close, 11 pm or zero hour. The bartender looks at you like you’re a stray dog that’s just wandered in. Everybody’s tense because the cops are outside and want to guzzle a share of tonight’s take. The music’s off and the lights flicker (hint, hint). You realize that your choice is limited to staying and melting into a piece of furniture or hitting the road. You choose the latter and mutter curses to yourself on the long ride home. You still want that second and maybe third drink and you want to hear “Do you believe?” for the 752nd time. No choice but to go to bed. You’re surprised that a man in a brown cowboy hat doesn’t tuck you into bed and put the lights out.

Our police force seems to be rather naïve. They seem to believe that by shutting pubs early they are helping to keep Bangalore free of crime and unwanted influences. Meanwhile the crime rate continues to go up while the boys in brown patrol around pubs instead of being in areas that really need surveillance. The guys who have to leave the pub early may get so frustrated that they might just do something reckless that will cause more of a headache to the police. Only I should decide when to pack up for the night, I don’t need someone else to tell me that it’s time for me to go home. The police are meant to protect us and fight crime, not be our nannies and tell us when it is time to go to bed. Which leads to the inevitable question. How much are nannies paid these days?    

I spoke to one of Bangalore’s leading restaurant and bar’s owner on the subject. The law is that the last order should be taken at 10:30 p.m. and people should be out at 11:00 p.m. Obviously this is very hard to implement especially if a person orders five beers at 10:30! . It really is no wonder that he gets hassled by the cops. He’s had his brushes with the law, three nights at the cop station with a non-bailable warrant. He said that between cases, cops and excise they eat up about ten percent of his profits. A constable will come to his place every night and the big ones will drop in occasionally.

He had a lot to say on the subject. There are many issues to this law. The first is that the law came into effect after the Mumbai bomb blasts and hasn’t changed since. Say what! Isn’t it about time things went back to normal in the city where the blast didn’t happen anyway? Secondly, the law encourages people to drink anyway and go outside city limits to entertain themselves. This causes accidents and death. According to him, they’re saying “I don’t want to risk opening places after 11 because I don’t want to have to look after them. If you die outside city limits then it’s fine.” Thirdly, everybody needs to release stress in their life and a lot of people do this by going out at night, drinking and exchanging information with others. After all, isn’t this the Information Age? By being deprived Bangaloreans are getting more frustrated and even getting more violent. He says, “Good people get into fights because they get under pressure. No time to drink. No release of stress. People have to have a dual life. Dual hobbies. That’s where they get their ideas.”

What’s the solution? To bring both sides of the argument together for a heart-to-heart debate. He says, “We have to get them out of their pyjama-kurtas and uniforms and discuss things. Let’s throw in our pros and cons and see who wins.” Apparently Commissioner Madgal has recently said in a newspaper interview that he doesn’t mind if people party till four in the morning. Why not talk about it with “the number ones of Indian companies”, as Manoviraj Khosala puts it, “even then probably nothing will happen.” Clearly pessimism rules the day since this law has been in effect since 1993 and will take some effort if it needs to be changed. Obviously it has to be gradual and one solution could be to close later twice a week maybe on weekends. Or even close the bar early but close the restaurant late. Bangaloreans should begin to expect at least some change. In Dubai bars are open all night and that too in an Islamic country. Still it’s one of the safest places in the world. In all the other major cities in India bars are open till three in the morning. Why are we lagging behind?

I’m still waiting for the night when I decide when to leave the pub and somebody else doesn’t make the decision for me. A night where the DJ doesn’t get apologetic about shutting down and I can get him to play one of my favourites late-night. I don’t know about you guys but I’m losing my youth and every night it gets taken away from me. This is about my freedom and my right to choose. I and I alone, not 11. Am I alone?

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