Photo of The Men Only Bar in The High Range ClubI need to say upfront that the photo on the left of the famous (men only) bar of the High Range Club in Munnar was not taken by me but plucked from the interweb. Read on to find out why.

I’ve been dying to visit this famous bastion of tea planters as a lot of action in my book takes place in my version of it, so you can imagine how I felt when I was told by the uniformed guard that I could not enter the hallowed portals as it was members only. I put on a charm offensive and told him I’d come all the way from London and was writing a book and that got me inside (through the tradesmen’s  entrance) and as far as the oak reception desk. The gentleman in charge there gave me short shrift. He was unmoved by my literary aspirations. Again members only. I offered to have a cup of tea or lunch but was told it non-member dining was residents only and to be a guest requires thirty days notice.

I kept on, unwilling to take a dozen no’s for an answer and bingo!, I was ushered along a corridor to the membership secretary’s office. He was a very scary chap and for a few minutes I thought he was going to prove resistant to my dubious charms. He had a young couple at the desk – presumably being grilled to see if they were made of the right stuff to gain membership (you have to wait seven years and then it’s a vote). He was doing a bit of grandstanding to make clear to them that the club didn’t let riffraff like me in under any circumstances. My very nice shy guide had come in with me and eventually the official relented and said – “you can have a quick tour, no photographs and he has to wait outside” pointing at Nihkil. So much for Kerala being communist – egalitarianism does not cross the threshold of the club and it’s probably harder to get into now than it was under the British.

Photo of The High Range Club SecretaryAnyway I’m truly grateful to the club secretary that I was given the opportunity for a look around (although feeling terribly guilty that poor Nikhil was banished – that’s him in the photo). The chap from reception proved an excellent guide and even let me enter the Men’s Bar and have then have a pee in the Ladies Room! They still have the hats (mostly solar topees) on the wall of the bar – you had to be a member for 30 years to get your hat up there (with your dates painted on) – and they go back to to the 19th Century with one fellow managing 37 years. Nowadays the bar is dry (Kerala is a dry state) so apart from a couple of hours on a Saturday night when wine is available from the Ladies Bar, there is unlikely to be any of the wild carousing that the British used to get up to.

The place is truly a time warp – with all the original furniture, an elegant lounge, a card room – 2 billiard rooms – one exclusively for senior members who have proven victorious on the lesser table! (and obviously men only), and a skittle alley that is now a library. There are several small lounges (one now a cinema) and a dining room with a large rostrum – presumably once for putting on all those Am-Dram productions and now used for family film nights and dinner dances. The club is surrounded by grounds with facilities for tennis, cricket, golf, squash etc.

So if you want to relive the days of the Raj, you can stay at the Club as long as you book in advance. But if you want to join, you’ll need to be a planter and probably of the right caste – and then be prepared to wait seven years and even then you could be blackballed!

3 Comments

  1. Linda Briggs

    Amazing! Thank you for sharing your experience.

    Reply
  2. Liz Harris

    When in Kerala in 2018, we went to the High Range Club, Munnar, which dates back to 1910. It was where the tea planters used to meet. We wanted to look inside the building, which was to be unchanged, and to have a morning coffee there. Our driver, who’d driven us from Bangalore, through Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to Kerala, was with us. We wanted him to have coffee with us, as we’d got into the habit of doing every morning.

    The driver waited outside while I went into the cavernous reception area and when I finally found someone, I asked about coffee for us and our driver. I was told that we could have coffee, but it wouldn’t be possible for our driver to come into the building.

    I insisted, and I was shown a small back windowless room, where he’d be allowed to sit. We would be in a larger room with windows. I was also then told that he couldn’t park in the huge empty parking area in front of the Club, but should move his car, which was smart and luxurious, and put it some distance away, down the side of the building.

    I went out to tell the driver that we wouldn’t be having a coffee there. He understood what I didn’t have to say, but insisted that we go in, anyway, claiming that he had to go and get petrol/diesel for the car.

    With a novel that’s set among tea planters, that’ll be published in 2021, I was keen to see inside one of the planters’ clubs, so we let the driver go for petrol and went inside for a coffee. When coffee was brought to us, it was made clear that the main bar at the other end of the building was off limits.

    I was so angered at the prejudice I’d seen that I’d like to say it was an awful coffee, but it wasn’t – it was the best I’d had in India. Instead, I ignored instructions and sneaked, with camera poised, into the main bar and photographed the walls that were lined with the spoils of hunters and with solar topis.

    It’s hard to believe that such prejudice still exists today, and that it’s fostered in a Club, so many members of which should know better.

    Reply
    • Clare Flynn

      Yes. The same place. Sounds like 4 years after my visit they hadn’t got any politer!!

      Reply

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