Where Michael Learned to Rock (for City Reporter)
In a world where the locus of good taste constantly veers into the bottomless pit of chic flamboyance, there is one place in my mind that clings to that good old quality, some might say failing, of true character. Pecos, the dark, smelly Woodstockian paradise, which generations of college kids have sworn is their college’s official hang out, maintains several kegs of this questionable virtue. Metallica t-shirts notwithstanding. The bugbear of all that is fashionable and trendy, Pecos has stood stoically through headbanging, trance and backward baggy trouser- wearing. It has fostered an obsessive connection between draught beer and the blues that will stay with many Bangaloreans for life. And it has provided a quiet corner in which to fool around with beery-breathed boyfriends while making you feel almost unbearably cool because you were listening to Frank Zappa while doing it.
My memories of Pecos are sweetly scented with the heady aromas of stale beer and fresh regurgitation (other people’s of course). I remember Elangovan was our favourite waiter, and boy did he wait a lot for us- to leave. Finally, in a heroic effort to either send us on our way or permanently move us in, sleeping bags and all, he gave us a pitcher on which he had printed, with red nail polish, all our names. It was that most fantastic feeling of belonging somewhere irrevocably- it had us coming back again and again. The pitcher broke very soon, as pitchers do, but we kept the bar propped up all through our college years.
After college we all went our separate ways, on the inevitable search for other Pecos in other lands, no doubt. And when I returned 5 years later, not much had changed, in the manner of all that is beautiful and good- the beer still flat, the gobi manchurian as scrumptious, the 60’s legends on the wall only slightly peeling….and Elango the boss. Looking prosperous, he greeted me with his bright smile and asked me to check out the new posters, the new music- and the new terrace. I can’t hear the music up here, I complained- but cheered up when I felt the cool breeze on the back of my neck.
Where else in Bangalore can you walk into a time warp? Where people who are still basking in the glory of the inter-college music quiz they maxed at IIT Madras 10 years ago glare with reverse snobbery at teenagers in strappy t-shirts and Axl Rose bandannas, (Guns’n’Roses is retro to them, you see), daring them to ask for the music to be changed from acid jazz or Janis Joplin to anything remotely post- 1973.Where most of the music has at some point of time belonged to the patrons. Where an advertising agency was hired to create posters that capture the deep, dry sense of humour only several pitchers of beer can conjure. Where you can find notices advertising the sale or purchase of everything from guitars and bikes to one-room apartments. Where Jerry Garcia and Jimi Hendrix are still kings.
I hear now that Pecos is one of the sponsors for the Freedom Jam that happens on Independence Day every year. And they have a new menu with an exotic kalamari curry and dosas. And the second floor just ain’t so cool anymore because that’s where all the preppy, ‘morantic’ couples sit and stare with equal fervour at the Beatles painted on the ceiling and into each others eyes over the (horrors) heart shaped menu. But people still sing along to obscure anthems by Led Zeppelin and tap their feet to the one tune of Dave Brubeck’s that is the secret password to Pecos, while devouring soggy popcorn by the bowlfuls, because dude, its FREE with the beer.
So I am back here and do you know what- I sit on the terrace, hearing only faintly the music that was the only reason I used to come here before. I hear (now on CD as well- technology hits Pecos, oxymoronically) Lynnrd Skynnrd and Little Feat, the Allman Brothers and The Who rubbing bony shoulders with (and this is new), Billy Joel and Dire Straits. Because inside, on the first level and the second and on the famous winding staircase we’ve had to carry so many people down, it is packed to the ventilators with advertising types smirking smugly about the Pecos promos- "Upstairs to the loo, downstairs for cigarettes, no wonder our regulars are so fit", college kids with grungy hair and attitude, and of course the small bunch of not-so-fit regulars.
Pecos is exactly the way it was. Perhaps its me who’s changed.
RUCHIKA CHANANA
11TH September, 2002
