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SOCIETY AND TRENDS: NIGHTCLUBS
Second-stage Revolution
Despite bouncers
at the entrance in most such pubs, there's no entrance fee. We2 at GK-I,
a pub with a central bar area and big glass panes, has a definite international
touch. Goan musician Nelson Furtadon, his flowing moustache twitching,
prefers playing at the new trendy places because he finds them livelier.
"Hotels are for people like my parents," he says. Variety is
the bon mot. Buzz, a new restobar at Saket in Delhi, with a multicuisine
menu and a brimming cocktail list, is part of a gastronomic sub-culture
spawned by the PVR cineplex that also includes a branch of Qwikys, McDonald's,
Pizza Express and Barista in the same compound.
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BANGALORE
A pub-crawler's haven, the Silicon city's joints are veering towards
variety by holding fashion shows at pubs like the Urban Edge
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Vikram
Bawa, Maushumi Udeshi, Photographer/Model
"We loved discos, but now we look for
places that offer all three-food, music and drinks." |
Big-city nightlife seems to have reached the
second stage of evolution. This stage is spelt out succinctly by Nikhil
Chaturvedi, managing director, Provogue: it is the plane at which the
ultimate party dream progresses from shouting above the din of a cramped
disco to a craving to hear and be heard in a more innovative partyscape.
So, moving from the regular disco option of Gatsby at Park Sheraton in
Chennai, you have beach discos like teenage haunt EC41 on the East Coast
Road, mushrooming on the road to Mahabalipuram and flying in DJs from
Delhi, Mumbai, even Goa.
"Music is one thing," says Harish
Samthani, socialite and a theme-party organiser, "but more than that
it's the ambience ... the open sky and beach which a closed disco cannot
offer." Add "beach" to "parties" and "discos"
and you have the hottest Chennai partying trend. Throw in speciality restaurants
like the Thai Benjurong, Japanese and Korean joints, discos like the two-year-old
Hell Freezes Over-which has about 300 visitors every night and is the
first night club in Chennai to introduce an all-woman disco-coffee bars
like Qwiky's that have live bands performing on weekends, and you have
the new Chennai outing scene.
Chennai party animals, however, claim the city
could raise its cool quotient further were it not for stringent liquor
laws. Neigbouring Bangalore too nurses this grievance. Bars and pubs here
are supposed to close by 11 p.m. but it hasn't stopped India's Silicon
Valley from being a pub-crawler's haven: there are 125 pubs and 1,353
bars and restaurants here. The city's latest attraction is 180 Proof.
Once a Gothic confection of high ceiling, arches and tiled roof, it is
now a five-level pub with a DJ and Thai dinner. Its old-world charm combines
a hi-tech flavour symbolic of the neoteric spirit-laidback ease and 21st
century modernism.
Six years ago in Kolkata, nightlife meant private
parties or a choice of three discos-Incognito, Someplace Else and the
Anticlock, all in hotels- but the discos now are wisening up to change.
Winning Streak, the city's first sports bar, is Anticlock in a new avatar.
A bar-cum-hangout joint for the 30-35-year-old set, it has sports memorabilia
as décor, a mini putting zone, a video arcade and plans for mini
basketball and football courts. "Business was stagnating at the Anticlock,"
admits proprietor Bunty Sethi. "You need a whole new set of changes
if you want to bring in a new crowd." The managers at The Park Hotel
agree. Its two-year-old disco Tantra has introduced global flavours-quieter
cigar and malt bars within discos.
The new options aren't just for Page 3 socialites;
the world cuisine fad and oodles of "we are more than just about
food" attitude is seeping into smaller restaurants too. Rewind, a
small eatery in Mumbai, is jazzed up often with live music performances.
Starters & More, that started out as a restaurant, is now set to bring
in live music, karaoke on two nights, telecast of Formula 1 racing on
a big screen, live performances by Sony Music artists and even panja (fist)
fights.
Notwithstanding the newfangled party temples
and their drumbeating about being different, there are people like Prakash
Khubchandani of Popcorn Entertainment, Mumbai, who says, "Everyone
likes change, but these are passing fads."
Achala Sachdev, choreographer, thinks Indian
nightlife could do with further evolution. "It is true we have gone
beyond pubs and dingy discos," she says, "but the third stage
has not been reached where you have speciality bars like reggae or jazz
bars abroad or stand-up comedy acts at both restaurants and bars."
Food critics and entertainment industry experts,
meanwhile, believe that the staying power of such joints will not depend
on the "fluff"-snazzy events or Page 3 appearances-but the quality
of food and beverages, and consistent output.
Another development that could heat up competition
among the new watering holes is the five-star hotels restaurants and lounges
waking up to the poaching of their clientele. So they are focusing on
innovation in services, cuisine and décor. The President, Mumbai,
has recently opened Kaleidoscope restaurant, that promises to be easy
on the pocket and offers comfort food, even as five-star discos are becoming
more spacious or reinventing completely. After 23 years, Delhi's oldest
surviving cult discotheque, Ghungroo at the Maurya Sheraton, has decided
to close down. "The new Ghungroo," according to Sheraton General
Manager Gautam Anand, "will be spacious and versatile, literally
and metaphorically, and ready by December 2001." It will be open
for lunch, dinner and snacks, not just evening events.
And the lovelies, he knows, will come.
—with Supriya Bezbaruah, Methil
Renuka, Anshul Avijit, Arun Ram, Kavitha Muralidharan, Stephen David and
Labonita Ghosh
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