Food and Drink
Bangalore's pub "culture"

By the Minkey Chief

The word "culture" is used in a broad sense here. The Petri dish that is Bangalore's upper social circle is sphincter-like in its incestual impenetrability.

Your very existence in this circle is defined by whether you are Coo or not. Even the most substantial people can instantly appear or disappear from this parallel Coo universe.

It all begins the instant you set foot in the latest Coo Bangalore pub. Scores of accusatory eyes will turn in your direction, all asking the same question: "Are you Coo enough to be seen where I am, at the moment, being seen?"

The appraisal is swift. If you are Coo, the looks will linger, they'll follow you across the room. If you are not Coo, the expressions go blank, the eyes sweep away and there's a swish of dimension on dimension as the Coo universe rotates through the Higher Planes it inhabits and instantly shuts you out.

The newest pubs are filled with Coo's most rarified inhabitants: The Air Kissers. The very epitome of Coo. "Oh hello dahling, you're looking smashing tonight" Mooh mooh mooh. "What an interesting dress, I lurve it." Mooh mooh mooh.

Backless, strapless, shiny, flared, high heeled, platformed, sequined, designer, gelled, bejewelled... and that's just the boys. The girls exhibit slightly better taste and all manage to be beautiful, redolent with expensive perfumes as well as offering vistas of luscious backs you could eat sushi off, and arms you'd want to marinate in wine.

Herd at a bar
The Coo crowd spend their weekends going from one Coo place to the other. This is not to suggest that there are many Coo places in Bangalore. At any given point in time, there is ONLY ONE Coo place and that's where EVERYBODY goes. After a few weekends, the Coo crowd realise they are having to ignore more and more of the patrons of their haunt, so they get up and move en masseto the next Coo place. There's never any reason to return: Coo places are like pimples, there's always another coming up somewhere.

After a few months of wildebeest-like migration, some astute members of the Coo crowd realise that they are seeing the same people weekend after weekend. The only thing that changes is that the lighting goes from one virulent colour to another; the surfaces go from one polished material to another and instead of paying Rs.250 for a whiff from a passing bottle of vodka, they're paying Rs.300. So some of the Coo crowd (these are still the astute ones) begin working out that paying enormous sums of money to be seen by the same people at different places every weekend isn't all that they thought it would have been.

Some of them end up being Bangalore's anti-Coo (article coming later). Others simply end up staying at home. You see, being seen in India is hardly at a premium; you could trudge down a railway platform and be seen in five minutes by more people than there are in the British Isles.

But for the Coo crowd who stay Coo, it is the quality of those glances that count. Being seen must involve appraisal, judgement and, finally, grudging acceptance for it to be worth anything.

So, see you next weekend dahling. Mooh mooh mooh WHAP!!!! MC