In the bar at the Madras Hotel Ashoka, you are usually in a bit of a time warp .
The waiters look like a throwback to the Madras of the Sedate Seventies and the Easy Eighties but their attitude is all about contemporary, artificial empowerment.
The crowd is a discordant mix of off duty police officers (because of the proximity to one of the Police hubs); loud, middled aged, hindi speaking businessmen; loud, hindi and english speaking younger businessmen and other riff raff like me.
But one thing is common to all the clients.
You don't get a "bill" like in other bars. You get a scribbled "Permit Room Requistion Form" with a huge space for the "Signature Of The Permit Holder" at the bottom.
I have several memories of the permit regime including one of a beautiful "Wine Shop" called Govindarujulu and Sons (or something like that) on the corner of Nungambakam High Road and Valluvarkottam High Road in the space that eventually became Naga's Restaurant and is now Sangeetha's.
My grandfather had a liquor permit and I remember a rust colored, Golden Eagle whisky bottle in the shape of a roosting eagle with a detachable head that covered the neck of the bottle and the cap.
I remember many other other things about the era of permits, mainly because my grandfather was a permit holding whisky drinker.
