Delhi boy lost in the city of 'pakdu' bars

The incessant drone in the print, electronic and social media against ACP Dhoble and the recent news reports about the busting of a flesh trade racket at a high-end four star hotel in Juhu by the police reminded me of the days when I had just come to Mumbai and discovered, among other facets of the flesh trade in the city, the highly innovative, ‘pakdu’ bars.

My first year in Mumbai was an emotional roller coaster. I had come to the city with an actress I was dating who wanted to make it in Bollywood. Those days I had little confidence in myself as a writer. Though I was still a reporter — I had requested my newspaper to transfer me to their Mumbai office — I had a vague feeling that my days as a journalist were over and that something dark and sinister was lurking on the horizon. A little over a month after we came to the city and found a small pad behind Hill Road in Bandra, my girlfriend left for a short vacation to meet her parents in Punjab and never came back. I thought a lot about going back to Delhi, but somehow I could not find the courage to pick up my bags and leave.

I had trouble sleeping, trouble remaining awake, trouble getting drunk and trouble staying sober. I had no friends to speak to or speak of as most of my new colleagues at the Mumbai office kept me at an arm’s length; perhaps because everyone in the country thinks Delhi journalists have more than a few chips on their shoulders. Every evening on my way back from work I would pick up a couple of chicken potato chops and pao from a neighbourhood bakery for dinner and wash them down with beer. I would sleep by 10 but could not hold on it for more than two hours. Usually I was up again a little after midnight and would linger on till daybreak in the strange and gloomy place between wakefulness and sleep. Occasionally, I went for a middle of the night walk but mostly I read. Nothing helped.

It was in those dark days that I discovered the exciting and often despondent lives of prostitute-chasers who showed me a Mumbai I never knew existed. Perhaps this is why my first appreciation of the metropolis was as the city of whores.

A pakdu bar is a strange place. There are prostitutes and customers but like the popular comedy series Seinfeld, nothing ever happens in a pakdu bar. I went to one with a friend I had made at a watering hole in Bandra. He said it helped him write good poetry without the fear of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. Since I was trying to write myself and lacked any inspiration I thought it would be a good idea to check out such an inspirational zone and if nothing else I could write about it. From the outside the pakdu bars look like any other permit room or a small-time bar. But once you are inside you discover the pakdu part of the deal. Every table in a pakdu bar is occupied by a prostitute who expects a customer to pay her in kind: by buying drinks.

The ‘evening’ usually began a little after noon and ended a little after the Sun went down (Dhoble should not have any problem). As soon as we entered the pakdu bar patronised by my friend in Chembur, he was greeted by his favourite girl seated at the far end of the room. I nervously sat down on the table opposite to his occupied by a woman who could have been in her mid thirties. I thought I was safe because she neither looked like a prostitute nor did she look like someone who would drink.

I ordered a beer for myself and asked her politely if she wanted a drink as well. “Old Monk quarter with Coke,” she replied without batting an eyelid. On the next table, my friend was sitting with his girl stroking her hair and neck and asking her to read some of his Hindi poems. 

Every now and then he would look at me and say “pakad lo, pakad lo” but I did not completely get what he meant. By the time the woman on my table had downed her second quarter and more customers filled in I realised the unique sexual gymnastics involved in a pakdu situation where the only rule was that one sat across the table from a girl. As long as the basic rules were followed, one could do anything under the table or over the table. I had never seen so many alcoholic prostitutes in my life (not that I am a connoisseur) and immediately understood why my friend produced so much poetry there. Perhaps the woman on my table realised I wasn’t the pakdo types or maybe she thought I was playing too cool for school but whatever she thought she did not insist on ‘pakdo-ing’. To me she looked like a school girl who suddenly found herself without any homework one afternoon — both of us didn’t know what to do so we drank.

By the time I got out, I was pretty hammered. My friend wasn’t because he had to drive and had a wife waiting for him at home. He promised to show me the brothels of Bandra the next time and I agreed. I walked him to his car and then took an auto home.

Mayank Tewari is a writer