The Codd-neck bottle, better known as banta, is 141 years old and forgotten in most parts of the world, but in Delhi it refuses to retire.
It is not taste that sells the banta. The entire weight of its popularity rests on the fascination of a marble-stoppered bottle in the 21st century and the brief but satisfying whoosh of carbon dioxide escaping when the marble is pushed to unseal it. That's probably also why Delhi's quintessential street drink will survive the competition from newer entrants on the soft drink scene.
Anmol Lemon, a banta bottling plant in the interiors of Bhogal, Jangpura, buys a crate (24) of new "Codd's neck bottles," obsolete in the age of vacuum packaging and screw tops, for Rs 700. It's the most expensive part and should've been the first one to be dropped from a cost-effective production process. "But no one will buy the drink if we change the bottle," says Babulal, manager at Anmol, "the drink is named after the marble."
The bottles come from Khandelwal Glassworks in Sasni, near Aligarh. Traders , operating from the labyrinthine lanes behind Novelty Cinema near Old Delhi railway station, act as local distributors. "About 10-15 factories take from us but we don't supply regularly. Anyone who comes here can buy," says Jitender Sachdeva, owner of Sewa Singh Enterprises, one of seven-eight dealers in the area.
No one keeps count of the number of banta sellers or bottling plants in the city. "There may be about 300," estimates Babulal . The biggest, apparently, is Arora Lemon in Tagore Garden. Then there are mid-sized enterprises such as Anmol that supply to 40-50 sellers in Sarojini Nagar, Lajpat Nagar (Gupta Market), Ashram and Bhogal. There are also Muskaan Bottling and Baba Lemon (Sarai Kale Khan), Shakti Lemon (Vasant Gaon) and Mourya Lemon (just moved from Dilshad Garden to Sangam Vihar). Owners of Pandit Ved Prakash Lemon Wale, opposite Town Hall in Chandni Chowk, do both the bottling and selling themselves . Chinibhai says his family has run the shop for at least 150 years. "The bottles were introduced in 1902," he says, "We get ours from Ahmedabad."
The constant stream of customers at Ved Prakash and the crowds around banta carts in North Campus may suggest otherwise but banta sellersand their suppliers-say business has slowed to a trickle in the last few years.
"It's dropped by as much as 70%," says AK Mehta of Mehta Trading Company behind Novelty-the sales hub for the flavouring agents and preservatives too. The decrease in sales is attributed to "soda shops" and bottled fizzy drinks aggressively marketed by the multinationals.
The skewed economics of hawker trade is getting in the way too, making the mid-scale bottler's financial health precarious, scaling-up practically impossible and the threat of being swallowed by the competition a real one. Anmol charges Rs 2.5 per bottle from a vendor who may sell it at Rs 10 to Rs 20. Street vendors can't be asked to sell the banta any cheaper than they already do-most are unlicensed and have to keep a variety of authorities happy to stay in business.
The other factor, Mehta points out, is hygiene. Banta is still bottled the way it's been done for decades - upside down in "plants" that would make any self-respecting sanitation inspector shudder-but now, along with the bottle, it has a badass reputation to recommend it. It's not for a delicate constitution, spoilt by drinks packed in sanitized environments and endorsed by superstars. You've ear ned your street-cred if you've had a banta-had it poured into a glass with crushed ice and 'masala' added for that extra kick-and didn't buckle under in a few days. You don't just take or leave a banta; you need to work up to it.
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