There, the anti-arrack authorities I'd gone to meet were busy auctioning "brandy shops", as IMFL outlets were called in south Tamil Nadu. In the same decade that Indian Made Foreign Liquor climbed 23 per cent, country liquor rose a piffling 8.2 per cent - though its total consumption figure was still over twice that of IMFL. Back in 1994, when this picture was shot, there was a raging debate over IMFL versus desi liquor.