Young engineering students dawdle around a paan and cigarette shop in Ahmedabad at night, waiting impatiently. As their rented rides arrive, they rush in, packing the multi-utility vehicles to the gills. Five of them take up a seat of four. For the next three hours, they suffer the discomfort uncomplainingly, as the vehicles negotiate the highway. Those who can, fall off to sleep.
The journey comes to an end a little after midnight. The students pile out of the vehicles and someone starts blasting Black Eyed Peas’ Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night on the phone. It is the one ritual that has marked nearly all late-night arrivals of students from Gujarat in Ratanpur.
The village of Ratanpur, in Dungarpur district of Rajasthan, is tiny – it has a population of just 334. Few would have heard of it even in Rajasthan. But among those living in and around Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad, it is more than just a familiar name. Ratanpur is the first village across the Gujarat-Rajasthan border on National Highway 8, and it is the closest thing to a pub scene for the alcohol-deprived residents of north Gujarat living under a prohibition regime.
There is something for everyone at the four large bars and hotels of Ratanpur.
The dimly-lit Kathiyavadi, which has a sparse selection of beers, whiskeys and rum, is populated mostly by middle-aged men. The younger crowd can be found either at Signature Hotel – where you have to book a room – or the three-storeyed Kingfisher Palace. Its lawn has about 20 shamianas, each sheltering enough tables to accommodate 10-15 tipplers. Some groups play their own music on portable speakers and pretend the lawn to be a mini dance floor. Not surprisingly, there are often drunken altercations at the hotel's lawn.
Kingfisher Palace (probably no relation to the brand) also has the wider variety of alcohol, with more choices in beers and whiskeys, including some foreign brands. Typically, a bottle of beer costs about Rs 200 there, and hard liquor is priced upwards of Rs 1,000 a bottle, depending on the brand.
Knowing that most patrons intend to drink till they pass out, the bars insist that alcohol be paid for upfront.
Of all the states in India, Gujarat has had Prohibition the longest. The ban was imposed in 1949 under Bombay Prohibition Act, when Gujarat was still a part of the Bombay state, and it has been made more stringent in the years since. Production, sale and consumption of alcohol are prohibited, and only tourists with confirmed ticket bookings can purchase a temporary licence to consume liquor in five-star hotels.
In 2011, Gujarat became the first state to introduce death penalty for production of spurious alcohol that causes death. Though the implementation of Prohibition is inconsistent and there are allegations of police colluding with bootleggers, there are raids every few days, creating an atmosphere of fear.
Besides, buying from a bootlegger means paying a hefty premium and running the risk of getting spurious alcohol. For college students there’s the additional threat of being rusticated if found drunk. Finally, most bootleggers don’t offer cheap beer, which yields low margins, and if they do it’s never cold.
To get around all these pains, students prefer to travel to Ratanpur.
They hire a car, usually not a registered taxi, for anything between Rs 2,500 and Rs 4,000 and set off for Ratanpur around 9.30 pm. They arrive at the village by midnight, just in time to open some beers for a birthday celebration, and then binge drink through the night. At dawn, the car driver, along with anyone who can still walk, gathers all the passengers in whatever state they are and drives them back.
On any Friday or Saturday night, you can see at least 20 cars and jeeps parked in front of each of the Ratanpur bars. More than 90% bear Gujarat licence plates. The hotel owners claim they are full-fledged hotels, with rooms for hire, but admit that most patrons visit them for a night.
Many students consider it safer to binge drink in Ratanpur than take any chances in Gujarat. They go to the village once every month or two when there is a birthday bash or a landing-a-job treat or an end-of-the-exams celebration. They believe that crossing the border means everything is legal, though this is unlikely to be true. With Rajasthan’s excise laws requiring liquor shops to shut by 8 pm, Ratanpur’s establishments are probably no more law-abiding than Gujarat’s bootleggers. Also, a search for liquor licences in Dungapur district on the site of the Rajasthan Excise Department lists only Ratanpur Hotel.
It is probable that Bihar and Kerala, as they impose Prohibition, will find similar towns cropping up across the border in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. It is, after all, an economic opportunity few would miss.