Since you referred to my previous FR for Thursday night in Cabana, Here is my perspective (perhaps biased as you will soon discover) on this topic of spending big in OBs:
I did not mention in my previous FR that the guy who distributed over Rs 2 lakhs on Thursday night also showered an insane amount of money on Anjali (another rare 10/10 who is also a fabulous dancer). She was not even dancing for him - she just stood there with a dazed and confused expression while asking him โkyonโ every few minutes.
That particular guy definitely does not work for the bar. He was back Friday night and ordered a bundle of money before discovering that Anjali did not show up in Cabana on Friday.
He was sitting with a relatively older gentleman (around 50 to 55 - hence relatively older, not truly old) who was missing on Thursday night. This older guy proceeded to splurge on dances from Shalu and eventually Shilpa after I settled my bill and got ready to leave at 1:30am. These guys were the only patrons left in the bar at that time. Why would they continue paying Shalu and Shilpa if these guys were bar employees?
I personally spent a ton of money Friday on Shilpa. I prefer to hand over a crisp Rs 2000 note per song instead of showing bundles of 20 rupee notes - it is just a matter of preference and a classic case of to each his own. Shilpa was dancing almost exclusively for me from around 11:15pm till 1:30am. I believe she danced for the aforementioned older guy on 1 song while I took a quick bathroom break before I snatched her away from him again. The older guy tipped her a few times even when Shilpa was dancing in front of my table.
A coatwala from another table approached me around 1am and offered to give me her number. I shook my head and politely said no thank you, number nahi chahiye. Shilpa had a confused look on her face after I turned down the phone number offer. She probably thinks I am insane.
BTW I did not take her number since I was going to return to the US on Saturday night ( I am writing this FR from Frankfurt airport). I have zero interest in carrying out long distance conversations with any of the bar girls.
My total expenditure on Friday night including dances from Shilpa, tips to Shalu , tips to waitstaff, cost of drinks etc was around Rs 30k which is less than $450. That is not much considering the fact that I wonโt be back in India until the later part of this year. To me it was worth it because I enjoyed the dances, ambience, some of the live songs etc.
There is no dearth of heavy spenders in Cabana. There were 2 other guys in there Friday night who showered a huge amount of money on 2 non-dancer marwari beauties who were encouraging them to spend even more. Eventually the bar owner personally moved these 2 guys and their non-dancer muses to the VIP.
There was another group of 3 guys with white hankies covering their bare heads (like we do in Gurudwaras). They stayed for a short time and appeared to be there only for a female orchestra singer who delivered a magnificent live rendition of the song โdama dum mast kalandarโ. These 3 guys showered a ton of money on that singer. Anytime anyone else tipped the singer during her rendition of that song, one of these 3 guys would walk over to their table and personally shake hands with them. No idea why.
The Tamanna Bhatia lookalike also made some serious coin while dancing with 3 guys next to the sofas to the right of the main entrance. I saw her busy exchanging whatsapp messages with them while I was exiting by the rear door around 1:30am.
So yes, all big spenders are not bar employees. There are plenty of rich guys in Mumbai (and short term visitors too) who splurge big money on bar girls. It may seem insane to some of us, but why should we care? It is their money, they can choose to spend it as they wish.
I had brief conversations along similar lines with strangers sitting next to me on both Thursday and Friday nights. They both claimed they wouldnโt splurge on bar girls if they had that kind of money. I told them they canโt make that statement until they have that kind of money. They were in there paying exorbitant drink prices in Cabana, so they were in no position to judge other customers. One of them even said โapni toh kismat phuti haiโ. My reply to him was to be positive and repeat after me -
โ
Apna time aayega
โ
I do agree with you on one point -
Each of us needs to be cognizant about our own limitations and capabilities. If we canโt afford to spend 2lakhs without impacting our finances, then we most definitely should not. Long term financial security is much more important than momentary pleasures.
In this scenario the old saying holds true - chaddsr dekh kay paon failao... yaa phir lambi chaddsr ka intezaam karo i.e aamdani badhao