Ahatas closed, tipplers find quiet corners to ‘cheer up’

Bhopal: Where hundreds of people who drank in “ahatas” are having their fill now-a-days after the “ahatas” (courtyards attached to liquor shops to facilitate drinking ) are closed and boards warning that drinking in the liquor shop premises is strictly prohibited have been put up in liquor shops at the behest of the excise department? Even as residents and shopkeepers adjacent to the liquor shops welcome the closure of the ahatas, they also wonder what the hundreds of people who used “ahatas” to drink must now be doing for the purpose.“We thought more people would be boozing outside the liquor shop once the ahatas got closed. There are some who do drink outside the shop at a distance keeping a watch on Dia 100 vehicles or a police van but more or less the crowd of tipplers has not spilled onto the road as we had expected following closure of liquor shops,” said a shopkeeper at 5 no. stop market.

Welcoming the closure of “ahatas”, he said that it has considerably reduced the nuisance that the drunkards created after coming out of the ahatas. “What they did inside the ahata was not our business but the nuisance they created outside has considerably reduced as there may be some people boozing in a corner or under a shade somewhere but it’s being quietly done as they are themselves scared of police”, he said. Rajeev Gupta, a liquor trader, said, “There are three ways that the tipplers, who sat in “ahatas’’, are making up with their closure. Those who sat in groups and drank have found their “secret hideouts’’ — small hotels, dhabas or restaurants to sit, then there are some, who used to have booze 3 or 4 times a day — they have reduced it to 2 times a day or less and they consume it anywhere without taking much time and there are some who have started going to small bars.” He further said that people, who on their way back home from office and wanted to have drinks on the way with friends or alone, or those who needed some time to finish their drinks, preferred “ahatas”. People, who drink country liquor, put their liquor bottle and water pouch in their pocket and finish it in no time anywhere behind a tree or under a shade or a vacant bench, he said. Virendra Singh, who has his office in GTB Complex, said, “At the time we go home from office in the evening, we see people boozing at stalls selling boiled eggs, omelettes or lemon-soda. There are cars also stationed at these stalls with riders having booze - it’s kind of “socialism of booze” we are witnessing after the “ahatas” have been closed. Dhabas and hotels on the outskirts of the city are also having more clients, who want to sit and booze in their premises, and they are happy to oblige.