Watering holes and waiting lists

Watering holes are essential retreats for all species, in the real jungle or the urban one. They provide the chance to rub noses (and the occasional unsuspecting posterior) in a relaxed setting. But whereas in the jungle there is only one rule — the bigger guy drinks first — we have managed to prescribe a weird set of dictums to regulate membership and behaviour in our gated oases which we call clubs. In Delhi’s Gymkhana Club, for example, one has to apply for membership before one is even born, such is the waiting list. New members are inducted only in place of old ones who kick the ice bucket, as it were, so a kind of Death Watch prevails on the club premises at all times, with the “waitees” keeping a close watch on the “oldies” and plying them with loads of cholesterol to help the natural process of ageing.

I have just learnt that there exists a club in Europe called the Giga Society; it has only nine members, primarily because to qualify one has to score more than 195 in the IQ test. That rules out everyone in India except Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, but I’m told that they are not accepting any applications from India after Vyapam — they don’t trust our marking system. The whackiest membership requirement, however, comes from, where else? My home state, UP. There is an exclusive club there called the Mritak Sangh, and to become a member one must be dead! No kidding. The saving grace, however, is that you don’t have to be dead-dead or brain dead as in a bureaucrat, but only declared dead, through false affidavits, forged letters and documents, usually by relatives who are fed up of waiting for you to call it a day so they can grab your real estate (and sometimes your wife). These walking dead have now formed a guild so they can get together and drown their sorrows.

In the USA, there is an Ejection Club! It had 5,607 members at last count, and to become one you must have survived being fired out of a military plane by an ejection seat. Being fired by the government from your job does not qualify, so that rules out Urijit Patel and Raghuram Rajan, who in any case have parachuted safely to the Davos club.

The ADC Club in Shimla persists with a unique caste system, in violation of our Constitution. It’s run by the Army but they have to take in some civilians also because the property belongs to the government. The civilian chappies can’t vote, but the unkindest cut is that they have to pay more for their booze! The Army guys get their liquor at CSD rates while the bureaucrats have to pay the normal, post-excise, bootlegger rates. They are the new OBCs (Other Boozing Classes) of Shimla. This doesn’t do too much for civil-military bonhomie but it ensures that at least one-third of the membership is sober at all times and that only civilian bottoms get pinched on New Year’s eve.

Which brings me naturally to another club where liquor poses another kind of problem — the CSOI (Civil Services Officers’ Institute), Delhi. It’s a splendid place with a fine bar and two restaurants, created exclusively for bureaucrats so that they can let their hair down without any arms dealers exploiting the bald patches. It’s the place where pensioners are dispatched by their wives every morning to get them out of their hair. Unfortunately, it appears to be run by some teetotaller gnome in the Cabinet Secretariat who has never heard of CCTVs. Nothing else can explain the decision that the bar will open only at 7 pm on weekdays.

My discreet inquiries have revealed that the government’s innovative 360-degree assessment system had perhaps revealed that some babus were playing hookey on working days, having gimlets at the bar when they should have been recording dissenting notes on files or suppressing the data on employment generation. But why shut down the bar? Why not just install a CCTV? That would have worked just as well, for a CCTV a day makes a babu earn his pay, as the ditty goes.

I am reliably informed that the retired babus are now planning to move to Assam or Bihar en masse where hooch is freely available in police stations and excise offices. Their wives will not follow them, of course, which is another reason why they are shifting base.

The IIC (India International Centre) in Delhi has fine dining rooms where the members come to relax after delivering lectures on how to change the world in 90 days. I was there some time back with a group of retired cadre mates and their spouses (for some reason, they are never called “wives” in government parlance, have you noticed?). Now, IAS officers while in service are a bit like that Russian dog in that old joke — they are well-fed but not allowed to bark. So when the muzzles come off after 35 years, they tend to be a chatty lot. In the middle of all our yapping and general mirth, a waiter emerged from nowhere like Banquo’s ghost with a placard which, shorn of bureaucratese, essentially asked us to shut up.

Since it was an unsigned statement, like the note submitted to the Supreme Court on the Rafale deal, we took no notice of it. After five minutes, the undertaker himself materialised (it was actually the manager) to advise us in a sepulchral tone that the IIC had a high cholesterol, low decibel policy and could we please, therefore, speak in Chinese whispers? I learn that the rules also prescribe that if one has a cardiac arrest in this club, it must be a silent heart attack so that other members are not inconvenienced.

It’s damn irritating if you are a waitee on the waiting list, because you never get to know when a member has left for his heavenly abode and a vacancy has arisen. So now I begin my day by reading the obituary columns.

— The writer is a former IAS officer