<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/apr/Mayank-Shekhar-new_e.jpg" alt="Mayank Shekhar" width="150" height="76" />It&rsquo;s 12 o&rsquo;clock on a Wednesday. Regular <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/cctv-cameras-have-become-a-big-part-of-our-lives-23624452" rel="nofollow">crowd&rsquo;s shuffling out</a>. There&rsquo;s an old man sittin&rsquo; next to me. Maybe thinking of his whiskey and trout&hellip;&nbsp;
You can sing the lines above to the tune of Billy Joel&rsquo;s Piano Man (1971), if you like. Because I am talking about a piano man, named Issam Chabaa, who looks a bit like Billy (with a French-beard) himself.
The track he played twice this night, though &mdash; much to the expected excitement of everyone &mdash; is the soothing, jazz-influenced, &lsquo;As time goes by&rsquo;. This is at the Rick&rsquo;s Caf&eacute; in Casablanca, Morocco.&nbsp;
Earlier, I&rsquo;d requested an encore from Issam.&nbsp;
What did I yell from my seat by the balcony, with majestic columns, arches, overlooking his piano on the ground floor? &ldquo;Play it again, Sam!&rdquo;
That movie line is an example of the Mandela Effect. Everybody believes Ingrid Bergman said it in Michael Curtiz&rsquo;s GOAT classic, Casablanca (1942).&nbsp;
Upon hearing Dooley Wilson (Sam) play the nostalgic number, Ingrid (Ilsa) actually says, &ldquo;Play it once, Sam, for old time&rsquo;s sake; play it Sam, &lsquo;As time goes by&hellip;&rsquo;&rdquo;
I quote from memory. That&rsquo;s the recall value of <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/mid-day-opinion-heavy-price-of-pay-first-verify-later-23624034" rel="nofollow">Casablanca</a>.&nbsp;
<img src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2026/apr/Casablanca_e.jpg" alt="The bar in a still from the 1942 film named after the Moroccan city" width="1280" height="720" /> The bar in a still from the 1942 film named after the Moroccan city
At Rick&rsquo;s, I should&rsquo;ve yelled, &ldquo;Play it again, Issam!&rdquo; He tells me he&rsquo;s been here, during dinner hours, for over two decades.&nbsp;
As the night ends, just casually chatting with Issam completes my trip to Casablanca. Have you travelled to a city, merely, for a bar in it?&nbsp;
Which is different from how nocturnal creatures definitely visit a nightspot they love &mdash; if they happen to be in that town; even if, briefly.&nbsp;
I&rsquo;m unlikely to skip, say, Down the Road, when in <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/mid-day-opinion-respecting-public-infra-is-every-citizens-duty-23623900" rel="nofollow">Panjim</a>, or Don Rob&rsquo;s in Vagator; Someplace Else, or Oly Pub, in Kolkata; Leather Bar in Chennai&hellip;&nbsp;
Which is the world&rsquo;s best-known bar? I&rsquo;d go with Rick&rsquo;s in Casablanca &mdash; not to be confused with the tavern named after it at Taj Mansingh in New Delhi. I mean the &lsquo;Caf&eacute; Americain&rsquo; from &nbsp;the WWII film, that&rsquo;s wholly set inside that salon, which Rick, as in Humphrey Bogart, owns.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s where, &ldquo;Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into,&rdquo; in Casablanca. She, being Ilsa, Rick&rsquo;s ex-lover, from Paris.&nbsp;
Of course, that bar is fictional. It was a set created by Warner Bros. in LA. I&rsquo;m sure movie buffs would&rsquo;ve gone around looking for it in Casablanca. The movie, itself, shows up, before the city, on a Google search.&nbsp;
In 2004, a former American diplomat in Morocco, Kathy Kriger, did the obvious thing. She recreated the interiors of Rick&rsquo;s Caf&eacute;, not too far from the main seafront in Casablanca.&nbsp;
The exteriors don&rsquo;t look the same. There are no roulette tables in an ante chamber either. But enough corners &amp; aisles, steps &amp; chandeliers &mdash; that soon as you walk in, the film comes alive.&nbsp;
I would&rsquo;ve loved a drink with the real-life Rick. Kathy passed away in 2018. But then the cool, insouciant Rick himself never <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/rohit-shetty-is-not-above-the-law-no-one-is-23623713" rel="nofollow">drank at his bar</a> &mdash; until he bumped into his unrequited love, Ilsa, again.
I remember people ordering champagne cocktails in Casablanca, the movie&rsquo;s Rick&rsquo;s &mdash; as I do at the Casablanca city&rsquo;s version.&nbsp;
It tastes more like bourbon than bubbly. Cognac would&rsquo;ve been the other movie option. I settle for sparkling wine. Sea-food&rsquo;s the staple cuisine.&nbsp;
As it could&rsquo;ve been back in Casablanca of December, 1941 (from the film) &mdash; an escape route from France to the Americas, once Nazis have occupied Paris &mdash; hence, a city of thugs, brokers, rebels, and servicemen that congregates at Rick&rsquo;s.
Like most economic/financial capitals, Casablanca of 2026, I notice, develops a healthy underbelly in the after hours, for the solitary, male business traveller, while the rest of town inevitably shuts down for the long day of work to follow.&nbsp;
Besides a 1986 mosque, there&rsquo;s nothing particularly touristy about Casablanca, the most populous Moroccan city. Even my airport cabbie&rsquo;s surprised I&rsquo;m not here for work. Can&rsquo;t call it a party place either.&nbsp;
What &nbsp;about Rick&rsquo;s then? It&rsquo;s char-ming, just like the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/mid-day-opinion-schools-must-take-a-leaf-out-of-matungas-terrace-garden-initiative-23623556" rel="nofollow">Moroccan people</a>, whose love language, evidently, includes Hollywood movies, Bollywood songs, and loads of sarcasm.&nbsp;
Muneer, the usher at Rick&rsquo;s, on the way out, sings for me, &lsquo;Main shayar toh nahin&rsquo;. The track at the nightclub in the town, Fez, screams, &lsquo;You&rsquo;re my Chhammak Chhallo!&rsquo; Everybody, in general, goes, &ldquo;Shah Rukh, Kajol&hellip;&rdquo;&nbsp; I&rsquo;m not surprised.
Driving across Morocco on a family trip, we stop by at the centuries&rsquo; old kasbah in Aet Ben Haddao, where several films have been shot, including Christopher Nolan&rsquo;s The Odyssey. I see a gate from the sets of Lawrence of Arabia still intact since 1972.&nbsp;
Likewise, with the Buddhist palace from Martin Scorsese&rsquo;s &nbsp;Kundun (1997), among preserved sets from the old Gladiator to the new Ben Hur, at Atlas Studios in Ouarzazate (&lsquo;Morocco&rsquo;s Hollywood&rsquo;).
And yet, no movie monument, to me, tops Rick&rsquo;s Caf&eacute;. Yeah, I know, expensive tourist trap &mdash; but I&rsquo;m a tourist; and where else would I rather be trapped, if not a bar, chatting movies/Casablanca!&nbsp;
I&rsquo;ve friends who held bachelors&rsquo; party at the &lsquo;<a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/mid-day-opinion-is-shrugging-at-hardship-indias-secret-weapon-from-lpg-shortages-to-stampedes-we-carry-on-unshaken-23623221" rel="nofollow">Hangover suite</a>&rsquo; in Bangkok, while there is no suite for a setting in Hangover&rsquo;s Thailand sequels. Here&rsquo;s looking at you, kids!
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper.

Could you visit a city, only for a bar in it, and which is also, technically, fictional? Well, I just did!

Of all the gin joints in the world...

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Of all the gin joints in the world...

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