Watering Hole

Last evening I did something out of the ordinary. I visited a place I wouldn’t under normal circumstances; Drinkers Paradise on Park Street, the Mecca of Cheap alcohol – OLYPUB. The last time I had gone there, was several months or more ago. I had never sat downstairs as it seemed like the ground floor was for serious drinkers. Anyway there’s always a first time and this time was it. So we got a table (the only one available) right in front of the door and settled down to start drinking. The ambience of the place kind of reminded me of the Coffee House, save the fact that tea and coffee was replaced with alcohol. There were some promoters in Red t-shirts promoting RC. Now I kind of get where MR. Vija Mallaya’s Rs. 16 crore marketing initiatives are being implemented to promote his IPL Cricket Team the Royal Challengers.

Anyway OLYPUB is unique in many ways. One being that I don’t think the interior décor (I don’t know if I can even call it décor) hasn’t changed for as long as one can remember. Two, that they serve drinks in cheap glasses, the kind you probably find at a road side dhaba. And the most unique one being that they bring the bottle of the alcohol ordered right up to your table, pour your peg using a peg measurer right there into your glasses. Watching this is so much fun. They ensure that you get every drop of that 30 or 60 ml peg you order. The snacks are ok and if you really want to eat, the Chicken Orley or beef stake is a must have.

Anyway after several pegs and some sheikh kababs and fish kababs we headed to the Mecca of Live music; SOME PLACE ELSE at The Park Hotel which is a little way along the street. Once there we waited for HIP POCKET to come up on stage. They seemed to be running a little behind schedule. So while we waited till they came on, we watched the Mumbai Indians getting plastered by the Kings XI Punjab team.

At about 10.30 pm HIP Pocket came on. They started with some tracks I hadn’t heard them perform earlier and the rest of their performance was peppered with song from their usual play list and their sign off was as usual with their Pink Floyd medley.

After HIP POCKET, the high energy band INSOMNIA came on and played some original tracks from their album and after a little while I left. It was way past 1 am and I had to get back to work this morning for some real important meetings.

So much for Saturday’s being off.