Raising a toast for Dewar's, one last time!

Curtains down

Barracked in the City’s Cantonment area, British soldiers of 1930s and 1940s vintage had a riveting obsession with a very Indian place.

Perched alongside the once grand Cockburn Road, the Dewar’s Bar was their haunt, its deceptively English-sounding name beckoning their appetite for draught beer and snacks with veritable ease. Decades after that addiction waned, years after curtains fell defiantly over Dewar’s, the building resurfaced.

On a canvas, chiselled to perfection in all its nostalgic glory...

Decaying, dilapidated and demolition-ready, the cherished colonial haunt today stands haunted beside the Benson Town bridge, almost as if deliberately. Definitely, a far cry from Paul Fernandez’s lovingly crafted illustration of the place.

His piece had even inspired Kolkata friend Paul Thomas to sculpt a fibre glass three-dimensional freeze replica. But the reality-nostalgia gap was stark, the mystery deep enough to trigger a probing trip by Deccan Herald into the past before untying the knot.

Enduring link

The trip to aPaulogy Gallery on Richard’s Town was the easy part. Curator Mona posed with the works of the two Pauls, recollecting her memorable visits to Dewar’s, its jovial, relaxed gatherings, its enduring link with the colonial past through a framed picture of Queen Victoria’s coronation.

“I remember it as very crisp and authentic, they never modernised in any way. The arches, lights, tables and the Phoenix fan were all in mint condition,” recalled the curator. But what fascinated Mona was the “incongruous” assembly of Johny Walker bottles, images of Gods and Goddesses in Ravi Varma calendar prints and the die-hard owner, a tilak dominating his forehead.

“It was so beautiful, so weird.” There was no music. It was, as Mona explained, what a British pub should be, an ‘old school’ place to keep the buzz on, but not with the
conversation-deafening loud music.  Dewar’s owner Varadaraj had to be tracked down in a flat across the road from the Bar, his mindscape scanned to squeeze out tidbits from a watering hole he first saw as a 12-year-old.

“I was a boy then, my father K. Krishnamurthy wouldn’t let me into the serving area,” said 65-year-old Varadaraj, sitting on a bamboo chair that originally belonged to Dewars. Eventually he would inherit the place that his grandfather P D Kanniah Naidu started in 1933.   

Varadaraj had seen British soldiers pull up their horse carriages and drop in. They had a very culinary reason to queue up: The Dewar’s specialities of Kheema balls and liver fries, boneless and skinless fish, and the head curry, served with bread slices. This distinctly colonial tradition hung on, and overwhelmed the clientele so much that the shock of January 25, 2010 proved too much to bear. After a 11-year legal battle with the building owners, Varadaraj had finally pulled the curtains!

But Dewar’s wouldn’t go down without one last Hurray. That fitting finale had even the Mysore Maharajah’s descendants raise a toast, and Thomas, the chief cook head straight to Assaye Road to start a marine fish outlet. After all, the boneless, skinless fish had to survive, somewhere!