04 January,2009 08:59 AM IST | | Fashutana Patel
IT was a place I'd seen before, although only from the outside. The word 'ghetto' across its wall graphiti style. I did not know then that many Saturdays nights would be spent here with friends, requesting Floyd's Coming Back to Life and Oasis' Champagne Supernova; chomping on peanuts (now popcorn); watching people bob their heads, those dressed in white shining bright because of the UV lights; scrawling quotes we thought were philosophical on the already scrawled on walls, professing our solidarity by putting all our names together.
Before I went to Mumbai's iconic pub The Ghetto, it was mainly discotheques. I didn't fit in there and I knew I never would. Then, upon being introduced by a friend to this beautifully dingy haven, it felt, well, quite simply it felt right. This was more than five years back, when the term 'retro' or retro pubs for that matter weren't making that big an impact on Mumbai's young party-goers.
Pub over club
With new pubs opening, from Bootleggers in Colaba to Hungama in Andheri, Mumbai's nightlife is turning towards a chilled out and conversational ambience over a full-out partying zone (as it was a few years ago).
"Everything is derived from an older platform now. By way of media, we've begun to tie up the past and the present. There's a whole voyage of discovery for the kids," says fomer VJ Luke Kenny. He says there's a 60-40 per cent split between pubbing and clubbing that's in favour of pubbing, adding, however, "For every demographic that wants to chill out, there'll be the same amount of people who want to go out and dance."
Kenny says he "likes all his enjoyments": just chilling and unwinding with friends or a night out dancing.
Pankil Shah, manager at Woodside Inn, Colaba thinks there's an obvious shift with the city's nightlife. "A lot of Mumbai's night life is migrating to pubs and the clubbing scene is taking a hit," he says.
"Previously the culture of meeting at a place and drinking had not been cultivated." The lively pub-cum-restaurant took a new avatar recently, "We wanted to make this a place where you could get a coffee or a beer; it now caters to anybody in the neighbourhood," says Shah.
The neighbourhood theme also runs through Sushant Kamath, co-owners of Bootleggers' ideology behind opening, cosily situated in Pasta Lane. "We were looking at a more community and activity based bar," says Kamath. The pub has games like Jenga, Uno and Scrabble to play over drinks and food and the Drum Cafe an interactive drumming concept begun in Johannesburg, which was inspired by the experience of communal drumming in Africa to enhance team building and experiential learning.
Kamath says the pub attracts a mixed bag of people tourists, expats, south Mumbai corporates, all who takes to its 1920s theme. Owner of The Ghetto, at Mahalaxmi, Thomas Cherian (popularly known as Tom) says that the multiple "so called lounge bars" only last for a "certain honeymoon period" and it's the places that offer you consistent familiarity that stick it out. "We've never sold ourselves as a nightclub, more as a hang-out. There are a lot of regulars who consider it home, they tank up here and then go party," he says, laughing.
Like Frankie said, relax
Besides making cracks at his own dance (or lack of, as he puts it) moves, VJ Cyrus Sahukar gets serious about Mumbai's overwhelmingly hectic work schedule: "Everybody's working hard. The concept of 9-5 is b'''s''', nobody has that anymore. You're knackered by the end of the day," the VJ says, adding that the pub environment is "a process of unwinding". Sahukar is a regular at Zenzi and Hawaiian Shack, both in Bandra.
Owner of Hawaiian Shack, Sadhna Romy, further emphasises this point, "They're tired of talking, so they're sitting and relaxing, almost like they're meditating," she jokes, saying that 'The Shack' as it is endearingly known, "Started out because there weren't many pubs in Mumbai that were affordable and offered a homely ambience."
A big chunk of the pub-hoppers are corporates, who after trying their best to climb that steep ladder, want to get away from it all, with Hendrix, Morrison, Elton John and INXS for company instead. Carl D'Costa, manager of Geoffrey's, Marine Plaza, describes vividly how pleasant it is to see top execs and CEOs relaxing with their sleeves folded and their jackets hanging on their chairs.
Evergreen retro
Sahukar gets nostalgic, telling us about his favourites Long Train Runnin', Funky Town, Self Control and Eye of the Tiger, "Every 25-year-old had an elder brother or sister who grew up on good ol' retro music that reminds you of home and family. Even the bad dancers know at least one good move to a retro song."
"We play retro and alternative rock. On weekends after 11, we play faster music so that people can shake a leg or two," says Bootleggers' Kamath, who thinks that retro music is one of its kind, as it can never be erased from your memory. Then there are puritans, like co-partner of Bandra's most well known pubs Toto's, Laju Bhatia who says, "There's a fine line between a pub and a discotheque. Most of the pubs today have dance floors, Toto's does not." It's not just the people who've grown up listening to the music of the 60s, 70s and 80s that take to the sound, as Tom points out, "There's a certain segment that likes retro music. Strangely enough, the trend is even growing among teenagers. People are re-experimenting a bit more with retro."
At The Shack, the music corresponds with the mood of its patrons, says Romy. The Shack begins the evenings with country and romantic songs, progressing to some retro and then later to fast numbers. Romy concurs with most pub owners who say retro music is never going to go away. It just keeps bringing more youngsters into its fold.
When asked if Toto's has, over the years, seen younger crowds coming in, co-partner Laju Bhatia says, "We usually get ad crowds, finance crowds, insurance crowds between 25-30, as they are people who have "aap kamai" and not "baap kamai".
It's a lot of things: disposable income, present and past colliding, no more of those simple 9-5 days, the need for peace, a desire to understand music that inspired our present musicians, the low lights, perhaps, the beautiful grunginess and rawness of a pub that doesn't care if you're mismatched, that are making entrepreneurs want to open a tranquil getaway. I'll take the support of two statements you've heard many, many times to close these curtains old is gold and history repeats itself
