The Arts: Party Circuit; The Party's Over

It was a clash of two worlds that shattered the revelry at the Tamarind Court. Its aftershocks are still being felt in the circles that chased the good times.

MUL Managing Director Bhaskarudu may lose market share while coping with the new norms.

Life for the Beautiful People is one long party, without a pause. Like migratory birds they follow the seasons, chasing fashion and the good times around the globe. At home, in India, they inhabit a self-contained little world which turns on its own axis and according to its own rules. You could in this charmed place -- this side of paradise -- turn up in a dress held together by sheer will power, and a few safety pins: inspiration Liz Hurley. Walk in with hair the colour of American corn. Or diamonds as big as the Ritz flashing on your ear lobes. It's an over-dreamed world in which fantasies can be made real.

For a while you even had Manhattan in Mehrauli. The beautifully colonnaded, aesthetically kosher Tamarind Court located on the outskirts of the capital is at a junction where rural and urban India meet. Here, as in many other oases in Delhi, a First World lifestyle has been superimposed on a Third World. And sometimes, as they did that fateful Thursday on April 29, the two worlds clashed. Like templates of two different civilisations. There had to be tremors.

The gunshot which killed Jessica Lall is still ricocheting in the world of the partying lot. After the Wild East gate-crashed so brutally into their revelling world of wines and poses and air-kissed networking, some of its inhabitants fled: to Europe or even Mumbai. Others sheathed their cell phones and went into hibernation. Those who stayed, got off the party merry-go-round. Many who flocked or gate-crashed into Bina Ramani's several dos didn't waste time condemning her. Or the press. Says fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani: "Today, the media is shredding the beautiful people it used to glorify." But the media too is being blamed for creating the celebrity cult, feeding on the frenzy and now putting the "high society" under a microscope. "It's like saying how dare these people have a great time," says a Tamarind Court regular.

Says designer Suneet Verma: "These men with the guns want to get at the guys who hang out with girls in short skirts." There's irony here: "I would like them to know that half of those guys are gay." Does Manu Sharma know that? Indeed, the jet-set is aghast that instead of focusing on those who pulled the trigger, the media has turned its guns on the Ramanis. As some journalists shouted at Malini Ramani when she was being brought to the Patiala House courts, "You deserve it, you deserve it."

Shocked by the hostility of the press and some of her friends towards her, Bina says, "It's tragic that Jessica died. I regret all that's happened. I have given so much to this city and I'm the one who's being tried."

Fear has moved into their precious world, putting la dolce vita on hold -- for a while at least. "I just want to vanish. It's made me realise how helpless we are in a situation trying to save somebody's life," says Rohit Bal, the fashion designer who's become the arbiter of taste and what is "cool" for the 400-500 people who make up this world of the Beautiful People and the wannabes.

The bullet also struck a bit too close to home for comfort. "My parents went quite ballistic. I feel unsafe in this city," says Mandira Malhotra, 22, a model and finalist in the Miss India contest. No more driving out after nine, and not without an escort. Mandira already has had a close brush: "When I was 19, a young man came up to me in a disco and asked me to dance. When I said no, he twisted my arm. He was the grandson of a politician."

Parents are not quite locking up their sons. But dressing downs have begun. Arjun Sawney, 31, savvy and with IPAN, says that his parents hold the lifestyles of his generation to blame for what happened. "They told me, 'You party all the time'." Sawney is now "a little wary" about his younger sister going out. "What worries me is the aggressive north Indian male." But like many of his generation, he feels that what the city needs is more not less bars so that there are enough outlets to "de-stress", otherwise all kinds of people will land up in the same watering holes and the resentment will build up. That perhaps was the original idea behind the Tamarind Court. As Malini says, "Delhi has no night life at all, so everybody is frantic to have a good time. All we wanted to do was bring some fun to this city."

It's also a soul-searching time. "I think we have to think about parenting. What values are we giving our children?" asks a woman entrepreneur. Delhi for many has become an evil city, a kind of Babylon of the '90s. It's a city which "sucks you into everything", according to an industrialist's wife who hardly skipped a happening party or event. "We need to examine what's happened, there are deeper issues here."

Even Bina thinks that there is a message here -- "to clean up our city ... the way the people of New York rallied round and made the most dangerous city in the world one of the safest."

Is the party over? Not quite. Deepika, a 20-something graphic artist, is sulking: she wanted to watch the World Cup on the big screens in the bars but now they'll all be shut at 11. And life for Deepika only begins at the Cinderella hour. Never mind that some goons stroked her freshly-permed hair at a disco and then brandished a gun when her friends intervened. "That's life," she shrugs.

Big City, No Lights

Lonesome Tonight: The bars close early and there's hardly any "good company"

Delhi's smart set has deserted its favourite discos and watering holes, atleast for the time being, as Senior Editor Ravi Shankar found out.

Ghungroo the discotheque is dead. Just like Jessica Lall. So are the other happening places in Delhi: Djinns is as bare as a strapless dress, laserlights play Ben Kenobi swords upon an empty Mirage dance floor.

Where do you go, go, go, my lovely ...

The lovelies have gone off the floor and off the bar stools in Delhi. Until a week ago, the strobes tattooed light on bodies gyrating on the capital's dance floors, revealing ivory flashes of skin through black fabric and denim, sparkling on streaked hair and black lipstick, picking out the sudden gleam of a vodka smile through the smoky dimness of cocktail lounges. Until a week ago, the roads leading to farmhouses in Mehrauli, Chhattarpur and beyond, Rajokri and Gurgaon bore cars full of men and women out to party. After Jessica Lall was shot down at Bina Ramani's speakeasy on a drunken dawn, the smart set is suddenly too frightened to party.

"It scares me to go out anymore," said Yasmin, one of the modelling crowd and Jessica's longtime friend, "you never know what might happen."

At the Mez, a dimly lit bar in New Friends Colony where those dedicated to hard rock go to bang head or on the other hand get a quiet game of chess in the middle of chaos, no one is throwing darts at the electronic dartboard in the corner. Next door Egos, which probably started a trend in Delhi, is equally deserted. Close by, Pebble Street, with its neon-lit bar and the deejay in his glass case, has a few customers picking at their food. In Connaught Place, a police Gypsy is parked outside Blues, where once you could clear away the tables and chairs after midnight and dance until dawn. Club 69, once so packed with jammers that you could see the music pulsing through the thick tobacco smoke and cars parked the entire length of Greater Kailash II market, is deserted too. Now at the stroke of 11, policemen swagger into these sanctums of the smart set in their sweaty khakis, the frayed ropes of their revolvers tucked into their brown belts, calling out in rough accents to close the bar and put on the bright lights. A short time can seem such a long time ago.

"How dare Bina Ramani spoil our fun like this," a young thing with green eyeliner pouted.

"Because there was a school shootout in Littleton doesn't mean they close all schools in America," said 20-something Shivani. "What is the sense of closing bars by 11 when no party begins before 12?"

They mourn that Rohit Bal has cancelled his yearly "happening birthday bash". Whyte and Mackay had a rock concert promotional where they didn't serve liquor! Booze companies had become major party sponsors, borrowing the houses of famous people for their launches.

A party is on in a Friends Colony house, and surprisingly it is not a very large one. It is Tuesday and Delhi's smart set doesn't party on Tuesday. It is Mata's Day, when the margherita lovers on the fast lane go on fast and observe penance, and the words Jai Mata Di doesn't mean a sleazy farmhouse. My host is an aspiring model and has walked in with his girlfriend just after the last guest has arrived.

"Man, its dead out there," he says, winking at me, "city is like a morgue." He goes across to the chrome and wooden bar and pours himself a vodka and orange juice.

"Got a thousand bucks?" asks a friend in a mock growl, putting a forefinger to his head. A girl sniggers. Every tragedy spawns its particular gallows humour as a way to cushion the shock, and Jessica's killing has been no exception.

"Gimme a thousand bucks and I'll give you a shot. Bang!"

"What is Bina Ramani's memoirs going to be called? Manu Smriti."

"What is Bina's next restaurant after Tamarind Court? Lower Court."

"If Bina starts a political party what will it be called? Private Party."

"How will she come to power? Through a coupon d'etat."

Before Jessica's death changed revelry in the city, partying was the Delhiite's greatest passion after dusk. And what else could be more conducive to drinking and dancing than the al fresco pleasures of a farmhouse?

The farmhouse party, as it is known among the sipping set of Delhi began in the late '70s as a reaction to Delhi's elite who kept their entertainment close to their cliques. Its origin is attributed to a swashbuckling Punjabi, fondly nicknamed "The Cadillac Pimp" by his friends. The origin of his name is lost in the mists of cocktail history, except for the fact that he owned a Cadillac and a farmhouse.

In the sedate and insular world of the Romesh Thapars and Sunanda Bhandares, where ghazals played in courtly drawing rooms, with ladies in pearls and chiffon sipping Chateau Margaux and gentlemen drinking whisky out of Bohemian crystal while waiters hovered behind like phantoms in uniform, the Cadillac Pimp was a rank outsider. So he organised his own brand of fun, throwing parties full of loud music and tandoori chicken in his farmhouse at Mehrauli at a time when farmhouses were rare.

This kind of outdoors party caught on, largely frequented by bureaucrats and politicians. The father of the farmhouse party would today be happy to know that the trend he set has grown huge, frequented by a great swarm of young men and women who can't tell a Chablis from a Chardonnay and probably think that Beethoven is a microwave.

Meanwhile, the Ra-Ra set sip their whisky and soda within the curtained sanctuaries of their drawing rooms, at private parties where the murder is debated endlessly. It is almost as if they are keeping a wake for Jessica. A bearded writer fills his pipe and adjusts his chikan kurta and declares that what is happening with Bina is a witch-hunt. A diplomat's wife crosses her lazy legs on the chaise longue and drawls: "It's the same, whether it be Bill Clinton or Bina Ramani. Both lied."

"Life has to go on," says a model who drove Jessica to Tamarind Court that fateful evening, "people are still partying out there." Oh, they are. But ever so gently. For a while at least.