WHAT was that about forbidden whisky being the sweetest? In Hyde-rabad, where total prohibition is as total as can be, one has to move mountains to wet one’s whistle. Chandrababu Naidu has seen to that. The Hyderabadi, an epicurean down to his boots, has not really gone about disturbing the Naubat Pahad—the hillock that overlooks the Assembly building—but has tried every trick up his sleeve to get his evening peg legally.
Naidu added more teeth to the prohibition package introduced by his father-in-law, N.T. Rama Rao. The upshot: only foreigners and Indians who can prove they are on a brief visit to Hyderabad can drink legally. Loopholes like health and corporate permits of the NTR regime have been scrapped. Under the new dispensation any Andhraite who imbibes spirits does so at his own peril and could spend a night in the cooler and be fined anything up to Rs 2,000 or serve a sentence up to six months or both. Should you wish to buy your freedom and avoid the ignominy of being produced before a magistrate, the under-the-table arrangement could work out to something like Rs 20,000.
Those hell-bent for a drink have to cross the border for a ‘safe drink’. For those who stay in Hyderabad, the trick is to convince the prohibition officials that you are not a resident of Andhra Pradesh. Businessmen do this by asking friends in Bombay or Bangalore to book their flight tickets to and from Hyderabad. The return ticket is a vital document for prohibition inspectors. Armed with a return ticket, ‘second class ordinary’, by rail if you wish to cut costs, one registers on payment of Rs 100 for a liquor permit in a star hotel with a permit room. There are no retail liquor outlets in the state, so forget about buying liquor at civilised prices. The permit allows you no such pleasures.
Once the ‘temporary tourist permit’—valid for two days—is issued, one is allowed entry to the hotel bar. Six pegs or six beer bottles a day is what you are entitled to and that’s what your friendly barman will serve unless you pay him a little extra. Not many permit holders exceed the six peg mark since rum sells at about Rs 95 a large, whisky at Rs 130 and beer Rs 110 a bottle. The choice is very limited, two brands of whisky, one brand each of beer and rum.
The permit does not, however, give the average Hyderabadi the license to indulge. There is always the fear of being reported to the police by enemies or unfriendly hotel staff. So the drinks are knocked back in a jiffy. And the barman always sees if the coast is clear before allowing the tourist to leave the bar. A Delhi businessman, who set up shop in Secunderabad 20 years ago, rues the day Naidu came to power. Says he: "The life and spirit has gone out of us. These days all our parties end at 8 pm. How long can you drink Thums Up?" The gentleman has gone through the effort of purchasing a car in Karnataka to prove that he is an outsider. He also carries undated petrol bills from Bangalore to prove that he has driven in on any given day from Karnataka.
Thus many visitors who frequent the permit rooms are not tourists but Hyderabadis committed to Bacchus. Some pseudo-tourists change their names every day on the return tickets to evade detection. Others do the hotels once or twice a week and on other days tap friends in the army for a few quickies at the Mess. Having friends in the services puts one in the privileged category, though officers do get tired of civilians who drink themselves silly.
But for those who cannot afford drinking in hotels, the options are highly dangerous. One is to drink toddy (which is still legal). But those who have taken it swear it is laced with dizopam and leaves one with a terrible hangover. Then there are the bootleggers and, the risk of consuming spurious liquor notwithstanding, a bottle of rum for Rs 650 is an attraction few are able to resist. The cheapest option is bootleg arrack—Rs 50 for a 100 ml sachet. It is a leveller of sorts. On days when good booze is hard to come by, one can find yuppies in Marutis helping themselves to a sachet of the vile stuff. Right now they’d do anything for a drink in Hyderabad.
