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Bar bar dekho!
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A hefty salary and the promise of travel abroad is drawing more women to bartending
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Photo: K. Pichumani
BALANCING ACT Trainees at the Indian Institute of Bartending
Her favourite is a layered cocktail with orange juice, Kahlua and mango juice. But, 17-year-old Ilakya, who came to Chennai from Puthukottai (Thiruvallur district) to learn bartending, has not tasted alcohol. Her parents yell at her if she mentions t
asting it and in her training centre, women are allowed only mocktails. Still, she knows a good drink from the smell.
Women have started trickling into bartending classes, and among the first few students in Chennai are a mother and two girls from smaller towns (Puthukottai and Tuticorin).
Bright future
Good job opportunities, a hefty pay and opportunities to travel abroad are the main draws. “It is an easy job, and we could earn upto Rs. 5,000 a day (including the tips),” says Ilakya, who adds that she could get placed in star hotels.
Edison, the director of the Indian Institute of Bartending, where she is a student, has a more tempered-down expectation of the salary. “Perhaps Rs. 8,000 or Rs. 10,000 a month, in the beginning. But they will earn double from the tips because we will place them only in high-end hotels,” he says.
If the girls manage to bag a job in a cruise liner, they could earn up to a lakh a month. But the institute guarantees them a job because of the rising demand for women bartenders. The girls can also work as bar hostesses, waitresses, bar captains (supervisors) and bar managers. They are also trained to work in other departments of a hotel. “They can shift to any other department, if they find the work uncomfortable.”
A mother of a three-year-old, Muthulakshmi was hesitant when her husband enquired about the course. But her relatives in London informed her that it is a safe and respectable profession, especially abroad. “If it were only mixing drinks, I would have been worried. But we learn bar tricks too,” she says.
Ilakya’s sister called the institute after seeing an ad in an English daily. Later, they convinced their parents. “I told them there would be an assistant to help me at the counter and a security guard,” says Illakya.
Shivasuganthi (from Tuticorin) expressed interest following an ad in a Tamil daily.
Her father came in person to get the details. “Parents worry for the girls’ safety, and I show them a video which show women bartenders at work in a cruise liner,” says Edison.
After her schooling in a Government Higher Secondary School, when Ilakya decided to pursue bartending, none of her friends joined the two-year course. “It was mainly the fees,” she says. The fee is nearly Rs. 26,000 a year.
Ilakya found the course difficult in the beginning, when she was being introduced to beer and wines.
Today she rates wines the best among drinks because of the “various easy permutations possible with them.”
ASHA S. MENON
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