Tollygunge Club: Very green, very sporty, very Raj. Golf course has maximum oomph-largest, most picturesque. Tolly has moved a groove or two recently, with plays on the tea lawns, jazz concerts and open-air film screenings. Massive corporate backing makes the club tick. Also has the best club digs, which some biz whizzes prefer to a five-star hotel. Run professionally. Great all year around except on Christmas eve and New Year's. Stay away. It's got too rowdy lately.

Bengal Club: The Brown Sahib pilgrim rest. All plush wood-panelling and oil portraits-even an ancient elevator that almost never works. Largely used by top executives and business dons for a working lunch/dinner. Great food, true class. Soak up the library, the service, the bar. Once stocked the best scotch in town, now the best ambience. Some patrons want the age-limit for membership lowered, but the managing committee is taking its time over the proposal. Excellent.

Calcutta Club: Used to be the best maintained, but service and facilities have slid, ditto food. It isn't hard to see why. From a watering hole for barristers, corporate bosses, doctors, academics and government officials, it's entered the phase of Bengali nouveau riche rigor mortis. This isn't about class but a good place going bad. Great location, still good for a quick swim or tennis after work, a drink, a read. So why ruin it?

Saturday Club: If middle-class Bengalis have moved to Calcutta Club, the significant others have gravitated here. Former trendy teen hangout; the Carnival Night dance is no longer the place to be seen at. The club is getting older, mouldier, noisier, less happening. It's even started a one-stop provisions store. What's next, disco dandiya "nite"?

Calcutta Cricket & Football Club: The second oldest cricket club in the world. CC&FC is still a bit of a boys' and chaiwalla's club-well-known affinity for tea company types-but now attracting families with a new swimming pool, children's corner, fashion shows and what not. Super bar, snacks. And if you haven't partied or danced your heart out at New Year's or Merchant's Cup Night do here, you haven't lived.

Calcutta Swimming Club: The club that denied M.F. Husain entry because he went barefeet. Now Husain can have the last laugh-it's slipped so much that nobody really wants to be a member of this club. And it isn't clear why it still bothers with dress codes when it should look more closely at some of its newer members.The best pools in town. Pity the place is sinking.