The Woman Who Dared To Drink At The Hesaraghatta Bar

The earth is so red around Hesaraghatta. There is a huge stretch of open space surrounded by trees and shrubs. A clear opening. And the red is like a bleeding river across it. 

The grassland stretches open on one side. A lone tree right in the centre stands sentry. A silent keeper of dreams. There are red and yellow threads tied around the trunk. So, it has the duty to fulfil the wishes and dreams of the people who live around. A tree of dreams, yearnings and desires are woven into the veins of its leaf and the bark of its trunks.

The Arkavathy River must still be flowing, underneath, invisible. The soil has its own memory and so do rivers. They carry the imprint of each other even when the soil is submerged under water or the earth pushes itself upon drying river and lake beds like it has in the Hesaraghatta Lake. 

There is no water in the Hesaraghatta Lake anymore, but there is plenty up at the Hesaraghatta Bar. 

Outside, men huddle around the grilled window, with an opening through which the savouries that will accompany their drinks are passed. The men all look dazed; maybe they have already had one too many. A cloud of drunken stupor hovers over the place. It is so palpable that one can reach out to touch it, raise a glass to it and say cheers.

There is a funny stench, too. Of piss and frying fish, of men’s sweat sour and dank, of fumes inside, of dust outside, of days slowly dissolving into nights, of tiredness, of dreams unfulfilled, of life slowly seeping away into nothingness one day at a time, like the Arkavathy River which flows no more. It is a potent stench. 

There are never any women around. The women of Hesaraghatta aren’t supposed to drink. Perhaps they drink surreptitiously when they sit together in the afternoon to gossip. It could be that the men don’t know that their women drink. It could even be possible that some husbands of Hesaraghatta coax their wives to have a sip or two to get them in the mood. But, no sir, the women of Hesaraghatta do not drink. 

The Hesaraghatta Bar is very much a man’s world. A masculine territory marked out by men for men. Only, Giacinta Robustelli loves to break down any door which has NO ENTRY written upon it.

Giacinta Robustelli is from a small-town Brescia in Lombardy. She is pale-slender, fragile with a mop of black hair and a mind of steel. She is writing a book and is here for some research. The character in her book comes to India on a spiritual journey. Giacinta has decided that she needs a first-hand experience to put the right flavour in the book.

A friend had recommended Hesaraghatta, a small cottage near the vineyards let out mainly to foreigners seeking the Indian experience. Giacinta is here also to be away from Brescia — away from the Piazza DellaLoggia, away from home, away from Giuseppe, her intrusive possessive boyfriend, away from her inquisitive domineering mother. She needs to have her own space and time. She needs to be out to be able to go within. She needs solitude to quieten the noise inside her head. She needs to be at a basic elementary level to breathe and live.

Giacinta has been told about the Hesaraghatta bar. She has brought her own supplies though. But sitting in her room and working all day makes her body go stiff. She needs to go out. She needs to talk to people. She calls out to herself, ‘Cara Giachen, amore mio.’

No one calls back. The walls stare back at her. There is a yellow streak right next to the window. A white curtain flutters. She looks and looks. The yellow and white please her. But now she wants a voice. Any voice. 

The Hesaraghatta bar is poised for something unusual tonight. But for now, no one knows that. It is business as usual here. People get down in ones and twos from the buses in the stand across. Every time a bus screeches to a halt, red dust swirls up and then meekly settles down. The shops are open, the roads are crowded. A cow stands on one side and benevolently looks on at passers-by. A monkey family watches from atop a stone fence a little bit further. 

The shops sell saris and plastic chappals, cheap leather and rexine bags, tiny bananas, huge watermelons, ropes, steel canisters, flowers, savouries — everything on earth. A black crow swoops down to pick a papaya piece from the ground. Men stand to one side in a scattered halo around the Hesaraghatta Bar, buzzing like flies. 

Giacinta Robustelli has never been to a place such as the Hesaraghatta Bar. She wears a flowered skirt and a red flower above one ear. She wears a pink vest and carries a huge bag and a printed stole. 

All the men turn to look at her. 

‘Cara Giachen, march ahead.’

The Hesaraghatta bar has a reputation. It is so dark inside, all you can see are shadows. There are fans but no windows; just the occasional, dust-laden skylight. Dim light bulbs hang from corners. Big posters of all the Kannada film stars adorn the walls — dark macho men with curved, swaggering moustaches, nubile girls, heavy-bottomed, big-breasted women. It is like a gallery of kitsch art. 

When Giacinta walks in — head held high, chin up, the bag held squarely in the nook of her elbow — the crowd of men parts, as the Red Sea did when Moses held up his staff. The men gape at her, not believing their eyes. Their nasha evaporates like camphor. They rub their eyes and pinch their arms. A few sheepish smiles slowly break out. 

She enters like a queen. The dark interior is cool. She chooses a table, a square table with two tin chairs. She takes a chair, settles her bag in the other, and looks around. After two minutes, the proprietor of the bar, Prabhu Rao, shuffles towards her. He bows formally.

'Yes madam, what can I serve you?’

Prabhu Rao speaks impeccable English. He has been to Mumbai and Delhi. He has been to Bengaluru. And, once, even to Dubai.

The other men watch in a huddle. There is a group of six at a corner table; all turn around, craning their necks at impossible angles. 

Giacinta holds out her head imperiously as if she is placing an order in one of those posh, uppity hotels.

‘Do you have the local beer?’

Prabhu Rao is all deference. He is indeed a seasoned seller. He is old and bent but has seen the world. He behaves as if it is the most natural thing for a woman — a white woman — to saunter into the Hesaraghatta Bar. 

The beer is brought. A plastic glass is brought. A square piece of paper is brought. A bag of salty potato chips is brought and poured out onto the paper. A bundle of neatly cut small squares of the newspaper is placed on the table. 

‘This, madam, is the Indian napkin and this, madam,’ he bows theatrically, ‘is the Hesaraghatta beer.’

Hesaraghatta is a savannah grassland. Hesaraghatta is the deep red wound on the bosom of the earth. It’s the bleeding river, a woman menstruating. It is the fecundity of the earth. 

Drench the garden, drench the soul, Giacinta murmurs as she downs the first glass. 

Her eyes are getting used to the dim interior. A man boldly walks up to her. ‘Can I sit?’ he asks and, just as suddenly, his bluster slips away. 

Giacinta is the queen. ‘No, you may not.’ She laughs, then giggles, and swallows the second glass in one go. 

The chips are salty, the beer strong and harsh on her palate. She starts sweating. Her hair is slick with sweat. Her skin glistens. 

The man, confused, retreats. She orders the Chicken Sixty-Five and the fish fry. ‘Oh my poor, poor fish? Are you from the Hesaraghatta Lake?’

The town is abuzz. Hesaraghatta bar is in the news. There are many bars in Hesaraghatta. Small ones and big ones. Thatched ones and those that serve only the local hooch. There are those, which claim to sell vodka and gin, too. But none are like the Hesaraghatta Bar. 
For it is where Giacinta visits. Every evening she is to be found in the Hesaraghatta Bar from six to nine. 

Now she has friends there: Manjappa and Muniyappa, Baliga and Basappa, Gundappa and Halappa. She is now one of them, part-woman, part-man; sometimes their equal, sometimes their more. They watch her in awe as she guzzles from the bottle. They smile at her when she mimics conversations with them. She is the comrade who drinks with them. She is the sister who needs to be saved. But, mostly, she is someone who is completely beyond them. Sometimes one of them walks her home. But they dare not touch her, they dare not desire her.

She is the woman in the Hesaraghatta bar.

They talk about her in the night when they lie down with their wives. How she drinks like a fish. Two to our one. They are impressed and awed with her drinking prowess. And how after four glasses, she goes to the men’s room and comes back for more. 

They laugh with friendly affection. She is one of them.

And the wives, ever suspicious, ask, ‘Does she sleep around?’

Then, with growing terror, ‘Are you sleeping with her? Do you want to sleep with her?’

The men nod regretfully. ‘Oh, how can we? She is the goddess of the Hesaraghatta Bar. We, mere mortals.’

Hesaraghatta is abuzz. The women sit together and their fear grows. Their men are going out of their reach. 

‘We need to do something soon.’

Neelamma the young girl, Balliyappa’s wife, has bought red lipstick and white flowers and also a cheap perfume. In the evening when it is time for him to go, she wears the lipstick and the flowers and stands near the doorway like a whore. 

‘Stay with me tonight,’ she implores. 

‘I will, but let me just have a toddy at the Hesaraghatta Bar first.’

No one has seen Giacinta. No one knows her name. One day, they all walk to her house. It has orange walls and a lime-green gate. The gate is locked. They huddle in front of the locked gate and wait till a dog comes questioning and runs back barking. 

A wizened woman peeps out. ‘Hey, what you want?’

‘We came to see the madam.’

And then they see the madam. She is indeed a goddess. Their husbands were right. She has white porcelain skin and a cap of curly jet-black hair. 

‘Uiamma, she is as tall as my man,’ Neelamma proclaims. The other women just look at her in awe. They have never seen someone so white. They look at their skin and sigh. Such rough skin and such big hips. No wonder their husbands won’t look at them. She is so pretty, so divine and we are just plain mortal women. Why would anyone spare a glance when they had someone so divine? 

‘Are you the one who goes every day to the Hesaraghatta Bar?’ Anjamma, the bold one, comes forth. ‘Spare our husbands, spare us women. Don’t go to the Hesaraghatta Bar.’

The next evening Giacinta saunters into town. Her hair is wreathed with white flowers. She wears a red skirt and a printed stole. But, instead of entering the Hesaraghatta Bar, she hails an auto-rickshaw and gives the driver a direction. 

The women, all of them surround her. They sit in Neelamma’s home. She has a red mat with a stitched border. She has water-filled brass bowls with linga flowers floating in them. A heavy, sweet fragrance is suspended near the bowls. The floor is grey cement polished to a shine by daily rubbing. There are curtains made of printed saris. The idol of Ganpati sits content in a corner.

It is in this room that they all sit on the mat. Giacinta gestures and laughs and smiles. The women giggle shyly and cover their mouths. They touch her tentatively and finger her stole. She spreads out her palms and touches their nose rings. 

They offer her tea in little brass tumblers. They offer her jackfruit chips and weave white flowers in her hair. They are happy at having her amongst them. They can’t speak the same language yet somewhere they are the same. Giacinta has never been with women like them.

Someone puts Nelamma’s plump little baby in Giacinta’s lap. The baby gurgles and pulls at her nose with her little plump fingers. Giacinta opens her bag and things come tumbling out one by one. Lipsticks and lotions, creams and perfumes, a small coin wallet and a hairbrush, a tiny earring, a bracelet, a bead necklace. She hands these out one by one. The women gasp in awe and finger each thing. They chatter excitedly in Kannada and giggle happily. Then Anjamma takes out her cloth bag and hands it to Giacinta. In it are bindi and flowers and pins and anklets and bangles and dupattas. 

‘You are our sister, o! woman of the Hesaraghatta Bar.’

So, there was this woman who became friends with them. There was this woman who heard their woes and whose woes they listened to. There was this woman whom they grew to love. There was this woman who, in turn, loved them. 

***

If you Google Hesaraghatta Bar, all you will get is a cryptic half-page that says it is a bar near the bus stop which serves alcohol. That it is open from ten in the morning to twelve in the night, all days of the week, from Monday to Sunday. It is not on Zomato. There are no pictures of it. 

But if you saunter into the marketplace and, perhaps out of curiosity, enter the Hesaraghatta Bar, you will see the proprietor, old and much bent around the shoulders. If you sit for a long time, much after the others have left and you are alone and it is still not the closing time, maybe if you are lucky, he may come and join you and, over one strong desi toddy, he may, if he is in the mood, tell you the story of the Hesaraghatta goddess. He may bring out a crumpled picture of a woman who dared enter a small-town men’s-only bar, who drank like them when in the bar but when out of it, in the homes of her women friends she was every inch the gracious lady that she was. 

‘Yes sir, she was the most gracious lady, loved by all.’

There are no raunchy, colourful stories. No, sir. It is just the Hesaraghatta Bar. A bar like any other but nonetheless, the best. People may come and people may go, but you will be fine if you drink beer after wine in the wonderful Hesaraghatta Bar. It’s so bizarre, but since then if I ever see a woman drinking, all I can think of is the woman who dared to drink so merrily at the Hesaraghatta Bar.

(Pratyaksha Sinha writes both in English and Hindi and has published ten books from major publishers like Harper, Juggernaut, Rajkamal, Aadhar and Gyanpeeth.  Her books have won critical acclaim and love from readers as well as senior writers. She has won a number of awards, among them the Indo Norwegian award, Hans Katha Samman, Krishna Baldev Vaid fellowship and has also been a resident of Sangam House.  She loves to paint and is passionately into music when she gets time after working five and sometimes six days a week as chief General Manager at Powergrid Corporation of India Ltd. She currently lives in Gurgaon. Twitter: @prats@9. Views expressed in this article are personal and may not reflect the views of Outlook Magazine)