Pub Culture, Bangalore

Cocktail at NASA, Bangalore

The parts of India that we've been in for the past few weeks don't serve alcohol (except occasionally discreetly in tea pots!) so we were quite excited about getting to Bangalore to sample the controversial "pub culture." On our first night we went to NASA, which is decked out like a glowing spaceship.

Later we found ourselves at Pub World, which, as the menu explains, is four kinds of bar all in one room. We particularly liked the description of the Wild West Saloon.


The next night we went to Guzzler's Inn. The only way I can describe it is to say that if someone built a toy town for kids to play with, this would be the town bar. It was somehow too shiny to be real.

It's hardly surprising that many of the bars where India's urban youth hang out are deliberate imitations of European and American bars and pubs, considering that "pub culture" is a recent development--traditional bars are strictly for men only. In fact, even in Bangalore's hyper-modern MG Road area, where we've seen far more women in jeans than saris compared to the rest of India, the vast majority of bar patrons are men. As a male and female couple, we were ushered directly into the "families only" area of each bar, a section that is separated from the rest of the bar, presumably to make women feel more comfortable in such a male dominated space. In NASA, we were the only "family" in the bar, while the main (men's) section was full, and in the other two bars there were only one or two other mixed gender groups, and no women unaccompanied by men.

It's interesting how gender and sexuality based oppressions play out in different cultures. Presumably in part because of the lack of women in bars in India, it's quite common and acceptable for men to hold hands, sit with their arms round each other, and dance together in a way that would certainly be regarded as sexual and therefore taboo in most straight bars in the West. In fact there's a hilarious/scary interview with Pramod Mutalik in Bangalore's daily paper, MidDAY, titled "Gays are safe on V-Day." In response to being asked whether the Sri Rama Sene will target gay and lesbian couples holding hands or exchanging gifts on Valentine's Day, Mutalik responds "How can we know they are lovers?" After having the concept of same sex relationships explained to him, he simply responds "Very crazy. I don't think it is natural," and then later, "We have to study the issue before reacting to this." Yikes.