Its about the role of bar girls as part of a HUGE intelligence gathering mechanims.

This has been shown in movies, added to crime novels and stories ad infimum, and actually used by various intelligence agencies to track and maintain whereabouts of underworld characters. The Bar Girls network, one of the key components of a glamorous underworld was a key point in various information gathering mechanisms and routines.

Up came the Great RR Patil, and blasted it down.

Down went revenues that accrued in the Mumbai night life. Down went revenues that night time rickshaw drivers were used to, ferrying people to and fro. Down went crime (apparently). Down went a whole sub market that relied on these bar girls performing night after night.

Up went surreptitious performances, and contract bar girls gatherings (you can”t keep a “good” thing down, can you?)

I remember the times when things like match fixing stories revolved around bar girls. I remember times when the likes of Telgi’s networks were exposed due to associations and liaisons with bar girls’ networks.

The bar girl attraction is a magnet that draws not only the staid and sober out for a temporary lecherous time, but also the underworld who flush with cash, frequent these havens for entertainment of a weirdly fascinating kind. This world, based on the mechanism of “biggest money gets it all” plays havoc with the staidest and most sober who meander into its environs.

This is a forum, and an avenue for those flush with cash that cannot really be declared to go out and amuse themselves. The economics of this industry, in terms of cash flowing around a single outlet, would at times put bourses and A level stocks to shame.

No wonder, then, that this was a world that attracted the underworld like nobody’s business. And no wonder too, that cops would turn a blind eye to “moralistic” views, for wasn’t this the forum that gave cops and moles their leads to track movements of”watched” people, stray disruptive processes, and business deals that couldn’t be mapped with a service or sales tax?

Have the birds then come home to roost for the great RR?

By banning the bar girls’ networks, RR effectively cut off a vital flow of information that could be used by law agencies to effectively and quietly quell a wide range of problems. If not quelling, they could be used as a leverage point to get information and leads to root causes.

Some “evils” are necessary… and some are even to be encouraged, with a larger picture in mind.

And the larger picture, Shri RR, is not morals management. It is human life and safety that you were appointed to take care of.

And you failed.

But then, thats ok, sir. “Bade shehron me aise chhot mote haadsein hote rehte hain…”