If your hair's smelling (mildly) of smoke and your wrists smelling (mildly) of attar and it happens to be Tuesday night in Delhi, chances are high that you've been to where it's at. Delhi's best known gay bar was throbbing tonight. I know a good time when I see one, but this was so unlike Turquoise Cottage... the only other place I know for a good time in these parts.
The music, for one, was like a 1,000 times better. None of that soulful pining-after-lost-love-my-Ex-got-married The Reason mush. This bar was celebrating here and now in a mad ecstasy. We had to drag ourselves out at half one after a string of "we'll leave right after this last song" promises that were all unfulfilled.
Deafening music that made your ears pop, no jostling-space, lots of beautiful men - including one in a halter and summer hat who got on the drawer set by the side to dance... though not very well - and incredible pulsating energy as couples locked in clinging embraces and moved erotically to the music.
Many gay men I've talked to over the past few months have rightly pointed out that there are so few spaces for queers and so when there is one, and it's shaking with great music, there's this unbridled, liberating sort of unstoppable energy and celebration flowing through the place. I can only compare it with Bangalore's The Club when it first opened (yes, that's how old I am) and we would hit the dance floor and not leave till three a.m. when the lights turned on and our feet ached. Lounge bars don't make for a parrrrty, TCs is lame in comparison and Elevate is a j-o-k-e.
Such such fun after a rather blue day.
