On November 20, people in Tamil Nadu woke up to some of the most disturbing coverage by Tamil news media in recent times. A popular Tamil TV channel Thanthi TV ran stories shaming women who were at the Big Bull bar in Chennai for their attire and for drinking. Later, Polimer News and News Tamil 24*7 ran similar stories targeting women. However, it now turns out that the pub itself was targeted by a group of inebriated men who demanded entry into the pub and created a ruckus. This group of men, according to various sources TNM spoke to, informed a friend who worked in a media house.
TNM also spoke to other people including the police, the pub management, journalists and camerapersons who all confirmed that a group of five men reached the pub around 11.20 pm and insisted they be allowed inside. The pub refused saying that they had a dress code which mandated that men should wear shoes. Moreover, the pub management said that they will close for the day soon and told the group that they were not allowing in more customers.
Initial reports by the Tamil news channels claimed that the pub was open beyond the mandated closing time in Tamil Nadu of 11:30pm. However, bar staff who spoke to TNM say that they informed the inebriated men that the customers inside were finishing their last drinks and would leave soon.
“The group then sat outside and said they would beat up any customer who exited. They waited for a long time outside. Later, a media person arrived at the pub. He asked what the ruckus was about and tried to enter,” an employee of the pub said.
CCTV footage from the bar that TNM has accessed shows a scuffle breaking out between a group of men and the bouncers of the bar. In the footage, one man is seen attempting to enter the bar and he was stopped by the bouncers. Seconds later he is joined by at least six men, all trying to push their way in. A bar staff who tries to intervene is surrounded by this group of men. One of the men in the group has been identified as a reporter for News Tamil 24*7. In the footage, the scuffle intensifies as the group of men together try to push past three of the bar staff struggling to hold them back. This happened after 12.00 am, and soon other media persons and the police arrived at the pub.
Read: Women in Chennai pub chased, shamed, and moral policed by news channels
TNM spoke to a top police officer and the officer confirmed that the police rushed to the spot after receiving a call to the control room. “An inspector of police, who was handling another case, was at the police station nearby. He reached the spot and before they could make sense of what was happening the media arrived. The entire issue looked like some sort of revenge,” the officer said.
The police said that one of the men had informed the reporter about the ruckus.
However, when TNM asked the reporter, he said that he was on the crime beat and rushed to the spot as he received a tip-off. He also claimed that he tried to open the door forcefully as there were people inside the pub and the bouncers were not allowing entry for him to inspect if there was a problem.
Curiously, though News Tamil 24*7 was the first to reach the spot, they did not telecast the story till Monday evening.
Although no FIR has been registered, police sources say the owner of the bar was asked to submit an undertaking that he will follow the rules.
The coverage by Thanthi TV, Polimer News and News 24x7 drew the shock and fury of many. The visuals focus repeatedly on the women’s clothes, with the cameras deliberately lurking over their bodies. Despite the obvious discomfort of the women, the camerapersons are seen hounding the women, most of whom were covering their faces with a scarf or dupatta. The camera tries again and again to get close up shots of the women’s faces.
It didn’t stop with that either. Headlines on Thanthi TV screamed ‘all-night alcohol party was busted by the police,’ and ‘half-dressed women ran out during the incident’. In one clip, a woman can be seen telling a cameraman to stop filming her, adding that she’d file a case against him. To that the cameraman responds in a disparaging tone, “Podu, podu. Po, po” (go ahead and get lost). As public anger built up on social media, Thanthi TV edited their post on X, but with a no less offensive headline. “Please… Thayavu seidhu ponga, Iravil ladies seidha seyal, sathamillamal vandha police, iravil nadantha paraparappu,” the post claimed, which translates to “Please leave. Here’s what the ladies did at night, and how the police arrived at the scene quietly.”
The coverage aimed to represent the fact that women, in clothes of their choice, were at a bar, as an ‘immoral’ activity that had to be shut down by the police. Thanthi TV’s YouTube thumbnail and caption read, “Chennai pub-il manmatha koothu, Raid-il sikkiya kilukilu paravaigal - moonjai moodi kondu therithu ootta- Kathariya thidir couples.” Terms like ‘manmatha koothu’ and ‘kilukilu paravaigal’ are highly sexist and provocative usages that aim to objectify the people socialising at the pub, particularly the women. These terms—which are exceedingly lewd— suggests that all the interactions between the women and the men at the pub were sexual in nature, further condemning them for any kind of intimate consensual relations.
Polimer News, whose coverage did not initially get as much attention, did no better in terms of how they described the incident. “Chennayil bar-il soundudan ladies looties, ravundu kettiya police, nikamma odu, nikamma odu”, their YouTube caption read. This translates to, “The women in a Chennai bar who partied loudly ran away as cops surrounded them.” Similarly News Tamil 24*7 shows women exiting the bar’s elevator as somebody, it is unclear who, shouts “Ellam kudi bothai, ellam kudi bothai” (all of them are drunk). Their post on X sharing another video in which the camera again focuses on the women’s clothes says, “Vidiya vidiya madhu bothai, pengal thindattam” which means ‘Drunkenness until dawn. The women struggled [to stand].” On YouTube their caption says, “Pub-la mubula therithu odiya illasugal. Bothaiyil ollariya rich girls” (the youngsters who fled the pub, and the drunk rich girls who blabbered).