Mumbaikars unwind at pubs that play music of the 60s and 70s

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.