Pondicherry – Bar(red)

(These posts were before I started this blog… Figured they deserved to be on the travel blog after all)

Originally posted: July 8, 2008

This last bit has to be told in detail… we decided to finish off the trip and the day long acquaintance with a drink. Headed to a quiet, clean and dignified looking bar in the middle of the city.

Now I should’ve realized, anything in the heart of the city there is incredibly ‘local’. Meaning there would be the local crowd, slugging down their drinks for the day. All those local heads turned towards us the minute we entered… two French guys, the only woman to enter that place (Me) and an Indian guy who looks like he’ll fit in the place in 10 hard drinking years time. We were the freak show in the circus.

The manager rushed to us and offered us a private table in one of the private rooms. But the French guys didn’t want it. Sit with everyone, they figured. Were they completely oblivious to the entire crowd staring at us or perhaps just used to it? I wondered if there would be a bar fight, likewise the manager.

When he learnt one of us could speak tamil, he offered private tables inside again. We would be there for all of ten minutes… but he didn’t know that. He wondered if one of the slightly drunk men would hit on me and then be hit by one of the guys I was with. Alternatively, one of the guys I was with would take offence to be stared at so much and hit back. Or some other reason that didn’t need a reason. We were misfits there but exotic misfits and had to be out of the way.

The guys ‘course were extremely exited by the prospect of a fight lol. I’ve never got quicker service for anything ever! N yes I dared to order a vodka, that I diluted with unmentionable quantities of soda and didn’t finish it. But I did order a drink, that is what counts. Maybe. Lol.

Maybe they will put up a board next time – bar. Women, white guys barred.