This was once a city where we got together and danced for hours in dimly-lit halls, but all of that is now but a distant memory
It’s hard to describe why those places were as popular with people of a certain age. Representation pic
I don’t expect everyone in Bombay to care about discotheques. They weren’t a popular destination for a majority of residents and were open only to those who could afford them, which automatically eliminated a few million people from being able to step into one. They were also looked at with suspicion because what happened in so many of those dimly-lit halls made a lot of people worry about the moral degradation of Bombay’s youth. I think about them though whenever I move past buildings that once housed them.
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We didn’t really need much money to enter a discotheque, back in the day, because there was almost always one that catered to those with lighter pockets. Juhu had its share of places for college students alone, who couldn’t afford more than a beer but gravitated to Three Flights Up, Go Bananas, or the Cavern because it was nicer to spend an afternoon there than in a dusty lecture hall. The people of Bandra had Rock Around The Clock, while those with a higher allowance could stroll into Fire ‘n’ Ice or the legendary 1900s. Even those who hated dancing and preferred headbanging found a home at the Razz Rhino.
It’s hard to describe why those places were as popular with people of a certain age at a time when even the ghosts of Bombay’s discos are hard to track down. Did we collectively decide to stop dancing together after we graduated and settled into boring careers? Did the owners of those places tire of trying to make their ventures commercially viable? Did the people who run this city decide that what Bombay didn’t need was more places involving alcohol, music, and dancing?
To be fair, it isn’t as if the need to dance in public has continued to thrive in most of the world’s cities. It’s as if that once human desire to celebrate together in an act of abandon has been replaced by us all splitting into smaller cells, meeting in groups of five, and staying home to binge watch shows on Netflix. There may be economic or sociological reasons for this, but I can’t help feeling as if something has been lost to those who have never experienced the joy of dancing in a crowd. This isn’t just nostalgia either.
Music no longer plays a significant role in our cities. Our idea of music has now been completely overrun by what the Hindi film industry condescends to feed us, which is why our celebrations are marked by songs that were born to accompany weddings on the big screen, or tragedies, or the abomination that is the item number. These songs are inadvertently co-opted into our daily lives and reappear on the street when some of us choose to play them during a festival. It’s why our gods don’t get the benefit of quiet meditation either, and are constantly subjected to a barrage of hits that have replaced what were once deeply spiritual events.
The arrival of a pandemic means it’s safe to assume we will never dance together again the way we once did in those long-forgotten pockets of abandon. It’s sad that we no longer think of music as an essential part of our daily lives. The music we now have is of the kind that is forcibly drummed into us from massive loudspeakers put up illegally at street corners and building societies. It is not pleasant and has a corrosive quality to it that acts as a perfect accompaniment to the nightmare of commuting or working in Bombay. It is the soundtrack to a city that is being torn apart at the seams and replaced by something decidedly ugly.
Where does one go for that kind of nourishment these days? Our restaurants play the same music that mobile phone operators do when one waits in line to be served by their customer service executives. Where is the classical music that echoed through Dadar’s streets, or the 80s pop that would make people stumble out with smiles on their faces from quiet corners of our suburbs? It feels as if international acts don’t bother visiting our cities anymore either, because they have written us off as an audience.
This isn’t a rose-tinted call for the return of discotheques. It is a sigh; a lament for what once seemed like a city of music whose streets have all been overwhelmed by noise. It’s probably why we can still try humming while walking, but no one will hear us anymore.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper
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