There are all sorts of addas –– like the ones in the paras or localities of Bengal, besides those held by some newspapers for hi-fi discussions. But the real addas are the ones where people who cannot afford to go to bars in hotels, restaurants and clubs sit down to drink local brew or “tharra”. Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are well known for them. Few may be aware that they also existed in Delhi proper and now are found on the fringes of the Capital. The scene there is no different from the medieval taverns and opium dens.
Omar Khayyam based quite a few of his rubais or couplets on the tavern, with impatient travellers banging on the doors, asking the tavern-keeper to open it as they had to begin their journey before the sun cast its first rays and “caught the Sultan’s turret in a noose of light”. Many must have heard the late actor Raj Kumar singing (or lip syncing) those memorable lines: “Kis tarhe jeete hain yah log bata do yaron/Zindagi jeene ka andaz bata do yaron/ …Ya phir maikhanay ka rasta bata do yaron” (tell me the secret of how these people live or show me the way to the tavern).
The adda is also known as the kalhari or kalali . A European padri who often went to it always asked for “tharra” even when he came to town from his church in Chandu-ka-Nagla. Talking of the kalhari , an acquaintance helped to enliven a bus journey to Faridabad with the following account: On an impulse on a dull day he had entered the kalhari where the colourless stuff was sold. Very few sat and drank slowly. The romance of the tavern was hardly felt in the kalhari as it was just a cheap watering hole. And yet one could weave a pattern of emotions there too. The kalhari -keeper was not around –– only his contractor, sitting with big bulging eyes, his moustaches bristling like those of a hungry zoo lion. The acquaintance, Shamsher (name changed) did not relish the drink and decided to gulp it down. The stuff was crude. The kababs being sold were not of halal meat and he did not like them, but the other stuff helped to dilute the effects of the drink.
Two men, who looked like safai karamcharis , were quite drunk, probably they had been there since the afternoon. “Mai us ko goli mar doonga,” said one. “Mai usey jabhi goli mar deta,” replied his companion. “What goli mar deta, goli mar deta,” chimed in the contractor. “Do you have a bandookh (gun) to shoot with?” Apparently neither of them had one and they both looked baffled at this unwarranted intrusion. But soon they were indulging in the same sort of talk again. From the far corner a drunk was cursing some woman and her family too. His face showed that he couldn’t hold his drink. He stared at Shamsher and then pointed out two lines on his palm which merged in a funny way. “Yeh chirya hai,” he said. Shamsher realised that the lines did form a sort of bird all right. “Sheila ki chirya,” said the man, who looked like a tailor. “Who’s Sheila”, asked Shamsher. “My wife,” replied the thin man with great emotion “and she is very fond of her ‘chirya’ and so are those who visit her,” he added with a sigh. “Another frustrated soul,” thought Shamsher and moved two places away where he was nearly throttled by another drunkard.
Still in the kalhari after his fourth drink, Shamsher went philosophic with a cigarette stuck in between his fingers like a hookah and not even the benefit of a paan to compound the taste: “What a place this kalkari is! People come here to shed their complexes,” he thought. Those who popularized the tavern were not just out to cash in on the craze for booze. They were surely psychologists. The clubs took over much later. But they couldn’t introduce characters like the tavern-keeper’s maid at whom everyone could wink. The maikhana was the mid-Eastern version. It was here that poetry like “Muddaton roya, karenge jam-o-paimana mujhe”, could be written, though Shamsher was not sure whether he had remembered Jigar Moradabadi’s observation correctly, and as he thought he dozed off because of the “tharra” he had drunk without cheers. By the time Shamsher finished recounting his reverie, the journey to Faridabad ended and also a tedious December evening when other boozers were probably already in their cups at the local kalkhari . But Padri Daniel died long ago with no one bothering to turn down as empty glass on his grave –– as old Khayyam wished some would do for him at the kabristan in Khorasan.
