About Titos Nightclub

This is the club everyone in India talks about having to go to in Goa – Tito’s nightclub. On the way to the club, there are official government road signs pointing you towards the direction of the club… never seen such treatment for a nightclub.

Location: Tito’s Lane, Baga – Calangute Road, Goa, India.
Website: http://www.titos.in/
Inside: Two levels of dance. One main DJ plays music to serve the entire place. Three bars on bottom floor. Only the bottom floor was open tonight
Music: Tonight was Bollywood.
Crowd: Tonight, mostly Indian nationals or expats
Dress Code: Casual
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: 800 Indian rupees
Occurrence: Every night
Atmosphere: A sense of disattachment

Timeline

Arrived around midnight and got in. It was a closed walled club, so you couldnt see what was inside. Went inside, and it was pretty sparse and empty. The place itself was impressive for a club in India. It was custom built for clubbing and not just some random bar during the day.

I counted about 40 or so people in the main room. The rest of the club, nobody was there. There was nobody sitting on the lounges, and no more than one person at a time at the bar. Very dead..

No girls.. lots of guys.. only one girl danced with me, she was holding her shopping in one hand, with the other waving in the air bollywood style. “I saw you dance, and had to dance with you!”. She was Indian-British, but had to go.. (I saw her and her shopping friend few days later at Delhi airport but I didn’t say hi)

I think that was it, all the guys were dancing bollywood style.. jumping up and down with their fingers pointed in the air. It truly is a sight to see.

Left 1.30am, disappointed, but understandably so considering what happened in Mumbai today.

About Capitol Nightclub

Location: 50-B Chanakyapuri, Diplomatic Enclave , The Ashok Hotel, New Delhi, India
Website: http://www.theashok.com
Occurence: Every night.
Inside: On entry to the danceroom, there is a two-tiered dancefloor. It’s of reasonable size, with bars and lounges on the sides. The upper tier is the VIP area which could hold about 100 people easily, and overlooks the main dance floor, which could hold 200 or so people. Outside the room, there is a canteen area where various Indian dishes are ready for your eatage.
Dress Code: Casual. No cameras were allowed inside as part of security screening, but inside people had managed to sneak in cameras and take photos in the VIP area.
Entry Fee: Reportedly 1200 Indian rupees, but I don’t know. It’s been set at a price to keep out the beggars and tight asses.
Music: Bollywood, House.
Crowd: Young and presumably of the rich / high class in India. Fair ratio of men to women. Mostly locals.

Timeline
What line.. what thongs?
I see the same bouncer that Viddy used at his house party. He’s fending off a swarm of people trying to get in. There is no sense trying to ask the locals to line up for anything in India.  Viddy’s wearing thongs and is refused entry. After a few minutes arguing, Viddy tells the bouncer to take off his shoes and to wear his thongs. He complies and Viddy gets in, as well as the rest of us straight in. Vid has the hook ups for sure.

Music
Was excpecting Bollywood, and we got it. It was the popular Bollywood music, and the DJ even mixed it up with some house tunes every now and then. Even though I had absolutely no idea what was being played, it was all very danceable. DJ was good..

Atmosphere
Today was a Wednesday night but it felt like a Friday night. Place was very busy, but it wasn’t cramped to make it a sweat house. Out of the 20 million people in Delhi, there’s has to be a group of crazy Wednesday night clubbers.

Grasscutting
I’m not a fan of it, but in the middle of the night someone peed me off and so I decided to cut his grass by just dancing better than him in front of the girl. She dropped him and got me.. It made my night better.

Coda
Was busy with the girl for rest of the night so there wasn’t many other stories.. but it’s a very good club to check out in India. As well as considering the state of the city, this place takes you away from it all.

About karma: This was the 3rd iteration of the Karma nights.

Crowd: Entirely indian except for 3 people – me, Pat, and a random white girl I spotted.
Music: Bollywood, Punjab and RnB. A short 10 minute house mix featured to break things up.
Cover charge: $15 before 11pm on guestlist. Otherwise $25.
Website: www.hungama.com.au

Experiences:

Getting in
There were so many men lining up! Not much eye candy. I could sense everybody looking and talking about our outfits. The bouncers luckily let us in. The frisker however bagged me out for my “Elvis” sunnies, saying he died a long time ago (Of course, jokingly) ! The security measures were more strict than that of the Asian clubs – we had to put all metal objects in a little bowl and do a little twirl as part of the frisk. Indians must be crazier than Asians. Thanks to Mithi’s phone calls to the organiser, we still got a discounted entry even though it was past 11pm.

The music: The DJ would typically play a well known rnb song sans the original vocals, and overlay it with some hindi or Punjabi ones. Most songs were basically in Hindi / Punjab. You might think that it would suck, but the rnb beats still allowed you to find your rhythm and dance. It worked quite well, even though I had absolutely no idea what the lyrics meant, nor what the words where to sing along to.

Dancing bollywood style: This was totally different to dancing to rnb. Rnb involves lots of bending and low arm movemnts. When a punjab song plays, you instantly put one or both arms pointing in the air. You sing along. Then if possible find another person or crowd to dance with. Once your little circle starts, the circle slowly moves in a clockwise direction, as each person pulls off their own bollywood moves.

Some of the basic bollywood moves I learned that night include:

- Hand thrusting with hands open. (the poke)

- Left to right and right to left arm shaking. (the alzheimer)

- Squatting up and down rapidly in a circle (the yoyo)

- Falling on your knees and throwing some open hand thrusts in front. (mini tank poke) Typically done with someone else oppsite you, also on their knees.

- Taking your right leg, and finding another opposite to join your ankle to, who also uses their right ankle. You then hop around in a circle, hands madly pointing and thrusting wherever looks good. (hills hoist a rama)
On the podium. I think I was doing the poke.

These dance moves are assumed knowledge amongst the indian crowd. Well, the ones I danced with anyway. Basically everybody were pulling off these moves. In any case you could also dance proper rnb style to the punjab music without looking out of place.

The women were doing miserably in the dancing department. Either there was no specialist style for women or they didn’t know how to do it. Either way, there weren’t enough women! It was probably 90 percent guys. Someone I met that night said usually there are more girls than guy at the Bhangra nights. He also recommended to visit Goa during my India trip next year. He even bought me a drink. He’s a… champion!

Champion on the left with a random indian on the right.

Oh master
I used some of the moves to get dancing with the guys. They welcomed me and most tried to teach me some moves, especially up on the podium. It was quite fascinating to see so many people expressively enjoy their dancing. It really made the vibe better. There were so many dance moves that reflected on how much they liked the music. The only equivalent in the common world is to pump your fists in the air or bang your head really hard.

One particular guy always came up to me and danced every now and then. So did this other guy. They looked deep into my eyes as we danced. Perhaps they were gay. I wasn’t sure, but they danced close enough to give me some gay vibes. It was quite weird and scary at the same time. The only time they would walk off was when another guy came up to dance with me. What was I, a woman dressed as a man, or an attractive guy? Or was it normal to dance so close to a fellow man? I was too scared to ask my fellow dancer to not dance so close to me in case he got an erection. Luckily that didn’t happen.

Me and the very close dancer. Perhaps he just felt very happy that night ?

Goodbye glasses There was also no cloak room that night, which was pretty .. stupid. I had lost my prescription glasses as I kept them in my pocket but they somehow popped out. They were never recovered ..

Getting kicked out: Dead tired. Took a break inside but it was too hot. Outside was great. There was a really strong breeze happening that night. I put on my sunnies, and sat against the wall. Bouncers came. They said I had to leave. Why? I looked like I was asleep and used the ‘don’t blame the messenger – blame management’ excuse.

I wasn’t beating anyone up, I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t creeping any girls… I was just being normal. F*ckers !!

Me, Mithi and Pat, right before I went outside and unceremoniously got kicked out for ‘sleeping’

Summary It was a good night and despite the rude exit, I would do it again for the pure different experience – as long as it wasn’t held at Martin Place Bar and I had another outfit to put on. Opening a cloak room would have helped as well.