Bengaluru, Take Your Pick: Dance or Booze.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
A couple of hours ago, I just watched half of a NDTV 24x7 talk show on the limitations imposed on nightlife in Bengaluru.
It included the state's Home Minister, the Police Commissioner and a moral-police sort of guy who could very well converse in English and yet kept letting out superfast streams of Kannada righteousness. (It is quite possible that he didn't subscribe to notions of free discussion. And so, insulated himself from the arguments of at least the non-Kannada speaking people in the studio.)
From what I gather, the new rules state, besides others that I may have missed:
a) No dancing where liquor is served.
b) Only recorded music. No live bands.
What great benefits this would bring forth, is beyond me. Not surprisingly, the stipulations are very vague. A nighclub owner asked the commissioner: What if a customer enjoys the music — recorded of course — and starts swaying or shaking a leg? He replied that a bit of dancing at his chair can do no harm. On being asked as to why he can dance at the chair but not when a bit afar, the commissioner didn't have much to say. He just said that a designated dance floor shouldn't be there. Promising a workshop to help the club owners understand the vague laws, he moved on, (amidst much laughter) to claim B'lore as the most liberal city in the world, compared even to London and other metros.
Anyway, one would think that, what people do, in places they go out of choice, would not concern the government, or any other group for that matter. (Unless they do illegal stuff, or harm and nuisance is caused.) I wonder how Bengaluru is feeling right now, being told what is right, by a group of people who have no business in meddling with individual lives and rights.
It turns out that the moral police had also raided a party to demand an end to the festivities. In a not much polite or legit a manner, I presume. Yet the authorities prefer to spend their time policing morals rather than acting on illegal occurrences. Pitiful, no?
Well, till things change keep practising the moves with the curvaceous chairs..
