Justice for India’s restaurateurs

I have to admit I was upset when visuals of those two brothers from Delhi began to appear on television screens I refer to the owners of a nightclub in Goa that burned on December 6 taking the lives of 25 people The brothers looked forlorn which saddened me but part of me was relieved too because their relatives had told police they didnrsquot have their phone numbers Imagining the relief they must have felt helped me calm downIt was interesting to note how news channels pursued that story relentlessly but I assumed this was because the number of people who died was below 50 I believe if larger numbers of Indians perish mdash on account of mismanagement during a pandemic for instance mdash anchors on television lose interest and focus on other issues Itrsquos just a theory I consider now and againAnyway they did follow this story quite doggedly asking questions about how the brothers escaped who tipped them off and why their passports were revoked only after they had managed to flee the country I donrsquot know if answers to those questions will appear of if we will ever find out whether they were protected by people in power because questions like these have been asked all my life with no resolution All I know is that seeing them in custody made me sad because it reminded me that some restaurateurs are really treated quite shabbily in this countryI can understand why this happens because itrsquos not as if I am unaware of what the hospitality business routinely gets away with I have visited Goa often enough to wonder how any restaurant cafeacute or pub manages to operate in places I have long assumed are offlimits Whenever that happens however I am reminded of restaurants in other parts of India where rules are as flexible Itrsquos probably why bad things happen so regularly and why we forget them so easilyI recall what happened in Kolkata last April for instance when at least 14 people including two children were killed after a fire broke out at a hotel No one was clear about how it started but police reportedly set up a special investigation team to find out As an Indian I am aware that adding the word lsquospecialrsquo is often a hint that therersquos nothing particularly special about something but I also know how important it is for the police government and bureaucracy to add it nonetheless the way restaurant menus use it to charge R50 more for a Masala Dosa Maybe they have found out how that fire started but no onersquos paying attention anymoreThe other tragedy that came to mind was from December 2017 when a fire at Kamala Mills trapped and killed guests at a rooftop restaurant in Bombay It prompted the BMC to launch a cleanup drive and issue notices to restaurants across the city dissuading us all from wondering who had issued those licences in the first placeNow I acknowledge that there isnrsquot much to be accomplished by listing how rules are ignored or broken by restauranteurs but I fail to understand why one or two of them should be vilified for it every six years or so If we can just accept that the food we eat the airlines we fly and the businesses we routinely engage with are bending the rules in some way perhaps we may find it within ourselves to be more charitable That way when restauranteurs are being arrested merely for doing something illegal we wonrsquot rush to insist on punishment We have to ask ourselves what kind of country we are turning into if businessmen go to jail just because people have diedAccording to the Goa police the recent fire revealed that the nightclubrsquos panchayat license had expired and was not renewed They also found out that the business was operating without permission which means itrsquos possible that hundreds of other restaurants or clubs we visit are not supposed to serve us anything in the first place So what should we do mdash just stop going out altogetherHerersquos what I propose instead If we start to live our lives under the assumption that most things around us are probably illegal we may be able to start treating criminals like human beings again It may sound farfetched but we have been doing this with our politicians for decades so why not extend that sympathy to people who actually give us something tangibleWhen he isnrsquot ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereiraSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper