Riding The Tide
The US endorsement of Pakistan's position on Kashmir bolsters Musharraf's fortunes even as anti-American outrage gathers steam.

Powell And Patience
President Bush's invitation to Vajpayee for a one-on-one in Washington next month makes up for the disappointment in New Delhi in the wake of Colin Powell's visit.

Autumn Of Turmoil
The Northern Alliance waits and watches the US moves in anticipation of a post-US-attack power struggle with the Taliban.
A look at the mood and the ground realities in Kabul.

LIVING: KOLKATA CLUBS

A rash of new watering holes in the city is taking over from the traditional ones with style and panache

By Labonita Ghosh

	LIVING IT UP: The pool-side bar (top) and the billiards room (middle) at Ibiza; Children's Hall at The Circle (below)

Archana Agarwal's children work as hard as her. Since the hr manager at Tata Tea in Kolkata keeps busy, she has enrolled her children in a school-cum-creche. Guilty, Agarwal decided to join a club, hoping her children could catch up on some outdoor activities. She tried three of the city's best places, but didn't make it. While two clubs told her they were too full, the third informed that her membership might take a decade. "I can't wait that long," she says. "My children will grow up by then."

Entrepreneur Ravi Arora had a different experience though he is in the same boat. When he wanted to join one of the better known clubs in Kolkata, a member of its managing committee promised to push his application for a generous fee. "I was asked for Rs 1 lakh even though the membership fee is a little over Rs 50,000," says a disgusted Arora. Like Agarwal and Arora, there are at least 10,000 people who have been waiting long to get into one or the other of Kolkata's 10 best clubs, a recent imrb study reveals. Some of them have been on the list for over a decade.

The good news is that a rash of new clubs are cashing in on this lopsided demand-and-supply situation and are fast weaning away the wannabes. While Agarwal is now a member of Ibiza, a new country club 25 km from the city, Arora is part of The Circle, which opened in 1999. A month into operations, Ibiza has notched up 300 takers, each paying Rs 60,000. The Space Circle, which has not even opened yet and has a steeper membership fee of Rs 1.1 lakh, already has four times that number on its rolls. There's also the highway-skirting Lakeland Country Club, besides some others in the pipeline: Princeton, another venture by the group which owns Ibiza, and Country Roads, a farmhouse complex with a club, which will be operational by the year 2003.

The well-heeled Kolkatan, for whom clubbing is a colonial hangover, couldn't have asked for more. With fewer watering holes than other metros, the club is an essential hangout in Kolkata for taking the family out for a Sunday lunch, entertaining prospective clients or getting sporty on the weekend. "Wherever the British set foot, the first thing they did was to set up a club," writes novelist Budhadev Guha.

The penchant for clubbing is so strong that membership of one or more of the city's prestigious clubs has come to dictate one's social standing. Most of Kolkata's turn-of-the-century clubs had been the preserve of the Brown Sahib till the 1960s. Now everyone wants to be a part of that charmed circle, forcing the clubs to tighten membership norms. While Bengal Club targets only the top company executives, Calcutta Club bars women and under-30s as members. The Calcutta Cricket and Football Club, the Royal Calcutta Golf Club and South Club prefer entrants with a sports background. Others cite legal reasons. According to air commodore (retd) K.B. Menon, managing member of the Tollygunge Club, the club's charter forbids more than 1,500 permanent members. "And rightly so," he adds. "A club is an extension of my home. I would like only the people I could bring home to be around me at the club."

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