Women dancing with beers, and drunk on wine, that is the essence of my literary creation. That is the Bacchic energy I want to see. I was troubled by Embassy dossiers, and I desperately wanted to evade India, and it was one evening while travelling in the central market of Gangtok (which has a suggestive name, certainly, but not as suggestive as Bangkok), that I saw a black-signed billboard promoting ‘Crown’ bar in the basement. It is exactly the sort of a place, I have a nose for.
I sat on a blue-topped, table and I asked for my first beer (₹ 200/$2). There was a very beautiful Tibetan girl behind the counter, with flawless skin and hazel eyes. The other girls were not as beautiful as her. One of them had a cleft lip, and she used to run it through herself in the mirror for 42 minutes every evening, as a gorilla would do in a nearby pond in the jungles of Kalahari. It is in such a setting that I walked in. A third girl was serving me. In came, my Bihari man.
Let us call him Camarade Récolteur (C.R.), Récolteur not in the manner of a Vigneron, but whatever life throws on him. He sat next to me, opposite the table, and was very gentil.. He immediately offered me a drink, and I could see had the money for two drinks (600 ₹ /$6) of wine (SAMARA) or three bottles of beer. I said, let it be, tonight is on me. I am normally not gentil to Indians, based on the famous anecdote told in Kashmiri circles:
A man walks in to a restaurant to eat. He takes a table at the farthest corner. An Indian comes in, with a moustache and a pot-belly, and places himself right next to him. The man is disconcerted, and walks off, and takes a table on the opposite end of the restaurant. In there, comes in a mullah with a skull-cap and a beard. The Kashmiri is disconcerted what should he do? He waits for the mullah to sit next to him, before he walks off and takes a place right in the middle of the restaurant, equidistant from the Indian and the Islamist, and close to the cash-counter and door to the Kitchen.
He laments his sort, and looks up and finds a ceiling fan by Crompton Reaves (C.R.). The waiter walks in right at that moment.
The man places his order : ‘I will have a noose, please?’
Waiter: ‘Quelle couleur …Saffron or Vert?’
The man: ‘Depends on the sauce…’
Waiter: ‘The saffron goes excellently with sang rouge….while the vert pairs fabulously with entrailles hachées ’
The man: ‘I’ll have mayonnaise…s’il vous plaît ’.
The Bihari man offered me a drink, but I refused a drink, and instead offered him a verre. He seemed to be fond of SAMARA Wine (₹300/$3), so I ordered that for him, while I got myself a second beer. In the meantime, a Bhojpuri song started playing on the Television, which brought the house down. The lady with the cleft lip started dancing with some young men, almost grimping on their hips, as if it was a competition who was going to put the couette in the housse first. The singerie lasted for some time, and the lady was tired and returned to her another man, who had ordered two drinks of wine (₹ 600/$6).He suddenly walked up to the counter, and ordered a third. He was entitled for something.
The Tibetan lady started doing her hair. She was reluctant. She took her time. Her husband walked out of the kitchen. He took her by the wrists gently, and ordered the young man to go with her somewhere. The flawless-skinned Tibetan lady returned after some time, with dishevelled hair, and a general expression of dissatisfaction, and quickly had a shot of l’eau de vie . She then, returned behind the counter.
I had seen what had happened. I ordered the Bihari man a second glass of wine (₹600/$6) while I took my third beer. The Bihari man gulped it quickly, and I had to keep pace with him. Camarade Récolteur (C.R.) now asks for a third wine (₹900/$9) and there is a glee in his eyes. I do as ordered, fin requested, and get myself a fourth beer as well (₹800/$8). But, in the meantime, Camarade Récolteur (C.R.) walks up to the counter and says something to the Tibetan lady. She looks at her husband, and there is a nod.
The lady takes her own time. She is not very happy. She looks in the mirror, and does her hair with a shubi comb. Then, she goes over her daughter’s notebook, in a white skirt doing her homework quietly in some corner of the établissement, and corrects something in her cahiers . She looks, right and left, and reluctantly, with a Royal gait walks out with my Camarade Récolteur (C.R.). I do not know where they have disappeared.
I feel a little disappointed for this lady, these aller-retours must make her lose weight, maybe that is how she keeps her impeccable shape. My Camarade Récolteur (C.R.) does not come back for some time. I am on my fourth beer (₹800/$8) and now the vessie calls. I walk out of the inner room, and take three steps downstairs towards the grubby left, and the washroom. In there is a compartiment, separated by curtains, where I hear some noise. The curtains are not drawn properly, and as I walk off I see the détourned face of the Tibetan girl close to the moustache of the Indian, and her white leg going in rhythm wrapped over his brown pants. I quickly return to the washroom, where I have a long parenthesis. When I walk out, I hear the two talking, and the girl tells ‘C.R.’:
‘ Allez, je vous paye un verre…quand même’.
As I’m walking out of the surreptitious establishment in the basement with the slithery floor, I hear the ring of the cash till, which signals a drink paid. The Bihari man still has money for two (2+1).
