As a boy in Calcutta, I grew up in clubs. Actually, many of us did. Kids of boxwallahs had Tollygunge and The Saturday Club as their playground. The Marwaris had The Calcutta Swimming Club as their fiefdom. The bhadra Bengali frequented Calcutta Club. Whilst the cream had fatty bacon at The Bengal Club. The badass sporty types had CC&FC as their turf. As for we Punjabis, there was Calcutta Punjab Club.
Each club had its own idiosyncrasies. It’s birthmark. It’s culinary leitmotif.
Sundays at Calcutta Punjab Club meant copious amounts of chips sprinkled with diced green chillies and shredded onions. There was Chicken Gold Coin. And there were Golden Fried Prawns. All during a game of housie. Each table had badly sharpened pencils. Serious purveyors of the game carried their own pens. The pink and yellow housie slips were legendary. The wooden number blocks were kept in wired containers. There was “Jaldi Seven”, “Four Corners” and the numbers were called out in a drone like manner. Two fat ladies meant 88. Punjab Club was a general “rolla-sholla” club. As we Punjabis typically are.
The Saturday Club was the city slicker’s club. Big on swimming, badminton, billiards and squash. It was run for the longest by Brigadier Chadha who ran it with a kind heart and an iron fist. He inspired immense awe and deep fear. He would invariably be seen near the TV Lounge on the first floor. Saturday Club was tough to get into. It had a formidable bunch of screeners. The club had the most dignified library. The newspapers were sandwiched between wooden bars. Saturday Club was the go to place for Christmas Eve for us. And Light Horse Bar was the epicentre with permanent fixtures such as the real estate broking don, Girish Chopra, Mr Bhari and the rockstars TP Ray and Shekhar Burman. It was also common to see the senior Mucadums and Charis sipping their tea on the verandah outside. The first family of The Saturday Club were the Sikris and Chadhas. And an entire batch of Xavier’s would arrive to see Sonal Agrawal swim. And of course Satish Matta’s cross court badminton shots were legendary. Just legendary.
Tollygunge Club was many things to many people. For us non-members the primary purpose was not to be seen by Bob Wright. He was the Churchill of Calcutta clubs.The genteel would gallop near the stables. The swish would tee off. The mutton chops were brilliant. As were the kebab parathas. The indoor pool’s diving board was formidable. Come New Year’s Eve it turned into a smooch stadium. Shiva belted out some crackling music. The trick was to acquire member passes that included breakfast which was all about horrendous hangovers and runny eggs. And many a lad without a pass has crouched in the car to evade being caught out. Fake passes for Tolly were then a cottage industry in itself. Those were civilised times that did not know barcodes or holograms.
Calcutta Club was no teenagers’ scene. As far as we were concerned it was relevant on just one day of the year: Christmas Day Lunch. Nyakachondi Bengali girls cloistered through the year would choke up with their parents. The glazed ham was sheer poetry. And the damn Pina Coladas. Sigh...
CC&FC has the distinction of contributing to the highest number of divorces. The accent was squarely on sport and port. Each one of us has doddered out of CC&FC at least thrice in life. And the high priest of the club was Salim. Disprin owes it market share to the Salim Special.
I hold the singular honour of being the youngest ever member of The Bengal Club. The Nagraj Bar was snooty and sniffy. And possibly the quietest bar in the city. The Chinese Room was fabulous. The main Dining Room had more protocol than Buckingham Palace. And the shoeshine service in the Men’s was a stroke of sophistication.
For me clubs would always mean frayed carpets, sprawling staircases and black combs in glasses filled with Dettol water.
Clubbing has now taken a new meaning.
Which in my book has no meaning.