In 2009, while figuring out my PhD dissertation on Indian student-migrants in Melbourne, I ended up seeking recluse in Hotel Qualithe. I had long known about this bar, the site of a friend’s ethnographic research into the Franco-Indian community. This was where they would hang out, get drunk and lament that the French had abandoned them.
Some 20 years ago, the bar’s regulars had made the track to Bangalore to attend the Rolling Stones concert and we had had a glorious after-party the day later. I knew all of them by face, though not necessarily by name. In the years after, we would meet at Qualithe. Living abroad, it was up to anyone’s guess when I would be there. But no matter the date or time, I would find them sipping their drinks, listening to old rock songs nobody really cared about any more.
For the longest time Qualithe comprised three adjacent spaces, the middle one where the counter was and where the lead waiter oversaw his empire. He was a stodgy fellow, pot-bellied, the buttons of his shirt sighing under duress. He had this calming effect large men can have when they are utterly comfortable with who they are.
Without further ado, he would bring you your drink and add the amount due to an exorbitantly large book, use a ruler he employed to draw columns with, and mainly to keep its smudged pages from fluttering under the aggressively wild fan.
Qualithe had its fair share of Tamil boys coming in over the weekend, ready to get drunk on cheap Pondy liquor. In the space opposite, old-timers would nurse their Old Monk and Thums Up, calling over the waiter to keep the rowdiness on the other side at bay.
The thick walls would keep most of the afternoon heat out. But there was always a stickiness about, the loos reeking of a time when Qualithe had seen better days. The aquarium that one passed by on the way had fish that nobody was ever quite sure if they were still alive. I recently passed by the building now hiding behind a corrugated wall with small holes that offer a peek-through. Hotel Qualithe’s gone. For many years, in fact. The last time I had a beer here was perhaps five years ago. And then one day it was simply gone. Shut.
Around the corner from what was once Hotel Qualithe lies Coromandel Cafe, formerly La Villa Rose. On weekends, there’s often a sign at the gate that announces that the place is at full capacity. It’s a particularly popular place to take a selfie. The lush garden facing the columnated French colonial building invokes a grandeur that makes one order a pastis without much further ado.
On the other side of Qualithe, the building that was once home to a rather uneven bookstore is now a gastropub. From the balcony one gets a commanding view of the adjacent Bharathi Park, visitors sauntering through its messy foliage, the occasional French cannon scattered here and there.
Its central piece is a sparklingly-white Greco-Roman structure named Aayi Mandapam built in 1854. It celebrates the gift of water to the town, named after a courtesan who had her own house demolished to build a water reservoir. One wonders what the family that decided to demolish Hotel Qualithe hoped to make space for?
The writer is author of Muscular India: Masculinity, Mobility &
the New Middle Class
