| At the stroke of midnight, history, memory and nostalgia heaved and swayed on the lush lawns of the Calcutta Club. Streamers fluttered in the breeze, chandeliers clinked, champagne and laughter flowed freely, while men and women mingled over suckling pig and plum pudding with brandy sauce. The moment was upon them. Beats from the military band clocked the countdown to midnight. Gary Lawyer's crooning, "And now the times are changin", gave way to the Scottish song of farewells and fond remembrances ? "Auld Lang Syne". The president raised a toast:
"We are ready for our centenary year. And we are ready to shed some of our old baggage not befitting the future." Of course, the Raj is long dead. But long live the Raj.
Some momentous baggage-shedding is going on in the elite brotherhood of Pax Britannica. Last month, by a jaw-dropping 99 per cent show of hands in an open forum, Calcutta Club gave women voting rights ? a clean break with a 100-year tradition. But it is not alone. Top-drawer clubs all across the country are in the news for all the wrong reasons ? anachronistic rules ? and are busy revisiting those. From membership to dress-codes, food menu to social events, India's elite clubland is battling to stay pukka. But at a time of rapacious economic and social change, the stiff upper lip is wobbling somewhat.
"It's a question of survival," says Purshottam Bhageria, the man who co-authored the voluminous Elite Clubs of India last year. Clubbing was the way to display status before economic liberalisation made it easy to flaunt fast cars, big houses and physical displays of wealth.
"New money, new attitudes, new types of people and new commercial clubs are cutting away the ground from beneath the old clubs' feet,"
feels Bhageria. To stay in step with the times, they are undoing the top button and loosening up ever so slightly.
"Our new rule reflects a social reality," points out Dr Dipak Mukherjee, an eminent surgeon and the president of Calcutta Club.
"Women are surging ahead in every sphere. We simply decided to acknowledge this." Formed in 1907, it cloned the tradition of London clubs where women members were not allowed. Till 1954, women came in through the back entrance (even the legendary beauty, Lady Ranu Mookerjea, wife of Lord Biren, the then club president the owner of Martin Burn Ltd). From 1970 women could use the first floor, but not those bastions of masculinity ? the men's bar or the billiard room ? upstairs.
Take Krishna Ganguly, the wife of Susnato Ganguly, geologist and a permanent member. She could, so long, order food and beverages for herself and her guests, buy fresh-from-the-oven goodies from the club's bakery for home, swim in the club pool, work out at the club gym, spruce up in the ladies beauty parlour and browse through books at the club library. But while she did not exactly complain, neither was she all that content with her lot. "Well, I have been here as a wife, not as a person in my own right," she explains.
Nandini Sardesai, former head of sociology, St Xavier's College, Mumbai, and now Censor Board member, is hardly surprised. She's one of those who spearheaded the movement to end blatant gender bias at the Bombay Gymkhana club. "The clubs suffer from a clear colonial hangover," she says. Women members were first inducted in the early '90s, but for years, they didn't have the right to vote. Then came the proposed resolution to demote permanent lady members to associate members. "It was proposed that sons could become full-time members, but daughters would be relegated to associate membership," adds Sardesai. And though the move was withdrawn, winning the right to vote didn't come easy. "It's been nearly three years since women members won the right to vote and got onto various committees." Today, women are everywhere and even have a new gym which the men envy.
Clubland has a tradition of guarding entry effectively by its draconian dress code: men in neckties and jackets, please, and ladies in suitably decorous female apparel, no jeans, no trainers, no round-necked T-shirts, no frayed bits and pieces. A fierce notice in the colonnaded entrance of the Delhi Gymkhana Club warns that "bush"
shirts are prohibited ("Unlike the shirt, the design of the upper portion of the bush shirt is like that of a safari"). If in Bombay Gymkhana, sporty members are not allowed to venture into the bar area in shorts, at the Calcutta South Club the dress code for sporty people is white ("We practise a discipline that is close to the standards of the Wimbledon").
If at the Chennai Gymkhana, any form of Indian attire ? dhoti or sherwani ? is not considered formal enough for a man, at the Dalhousie Institute in Calcutta, men are allowed to enter the main bar and lounge dressed in shorts only till 6 pm ("Women are free to move about in shorts and slippers any time and anywhere"). In Calcutta Club, 'national dress' means strictly dhoti-kurta, while the Tollygunge Club of Calcutta forbids dhoti-kurta in its dining room and bar. "We have to show that we believe in the people that make the club special. I'll always stand by the dress code, it's ambiguous, yes, and at times it's unfair, but it's one of the most important factors in the survival of the clubs," says Noomi Mehta, the man who heads the 172-year-old Calcutta Cricket & Football Club (CCFC) and the Selvel ad agency in Calcutta.
But in an age of sartorial anarchy ? when men in their 50s walk the streets in T-shirts and shorts ? the dress code appear incomprehensible to outsiders. And anomaly seeps in when the exclusionary device flushes out the whales along with the minnows in a deluge of bad publicity. In the late '80s eminent artist, M. F.
Husain, was not allowed to enter the Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana in Mumbai because he was barefoot. In late '90s, the former Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, was denied entry to the Calcutta Swimming Club because he was wearing a dhoti. In 2002, Bangalore Club turned away member, Mohan Gopal, director of Bangalore's law school, for wearing national dress at a formal dinner. In 2004 Tollygunge Club found itself in a bit of a pickle when a member filed a case against the club for stopping one of his guests wearing jodhpur breeches and kurta. Public furore has led both Bombay Willingdon and Calcutta Swimming Club to change their rules.
Exclusivity ? to the point of exclusion ? is ensured largely through the joining procedures. The snobbery of the British class system mutates into new forms as the elderly, upper-crust members of club society resist the entry of the new-order political and business elite. Image and profile-matching are the bywords here (Gymkhana for bureaucrats, Bengal Club for burra sahibs, the 'old money' Calcutta Club; the weekend Tollygunge Club and so on).
Most clubs look out for matching attributes. "A member must be a "gentleman", "enjoy a wholesome reputation" and must be able to show that they are "someone who will fit into the milieu of the club," says Cmmdre K.B. Menon, president of the Tolly Club. No wonder, six months back, railway minister Lalu Yadav was refused membership at the India International Centre, Delhi, while young Rahul Gandhi joined the Gymkhana (where the waiting list runs for 35 years) last year through the 'eminent persons' category.
Most clubs insist on a certain status and stature (a Janpath shopkeeper reportedly being refused membership at the Delhi Gymkhana).
While Calcutta Club has now given up the infamous 'blackballing'
procedure for screening new members, at the Bengal Club nobody can become a member unless he or she is 35. For sporting clubs, "one has to prove one's passion for sports". Even Infosys chairman and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy had to prove his passion for golf to get into Karnataka Golf Club. "The point is," says Noomi Mehta, "clubs serve a larger social purpose. "You have to feel most comfortable in your peer group. A club is a place to bounce off ideas in an informal atmosphere. It's also a place to unwind, where a member can be sure to catch up with friends without prior appointment."
Taking advantage of the huge waiting list of the elite clubs, new commercial players on the club circuit are mushrooming. And they are going all out to woo a select clientele with various goodies on offer.
Says Dinesh Khanna, executive director, Holiday Inn and owner of The Club, Mumbai: "Today, nobody will wait for their lifetime to get a membership. Also, with other modern clubs coming up, people are looking forward to recreational facilities which are closer to their homes." The Club Mumbai offers facilities ? a Gourmet Galore and recreational zone ? and has Big B as a member.
Bangalore's Eagleton Golf Club does not restrict membership to only golf players.
But exclusivity takes a beating at the altar of Mammon. Elite clubs often find it hard to upgrade and flex their financial muscles in the same way as some of the new clubs. Membership at the new private clubs could set one back by anywhere between Rs 3-8 lakh ? much more than the membership fees of the old clubs (which range around a lakh). Food and beverage are way cheaper. A four-course Chinese dinner with a couple of rounds of good whiskey at the Calcutta Club works out to less than Rs 1000. At the CCFC, a peg of Scotch is just Rs 120.
A month's riding lessons at Tolly costs the member Rs 800 and a game of tennis just Rs 5 at the Saturday Club. At the 170-year-old RCGC, an 18-hole game can be played for less than Rs 100, caddie and all. As a result, the elite clubs are often forced to run and maintain their glitz by courting corporate sponsorship for their programmes and letting out premises and resources for private parties. "These are usually booked in the name of a member but often paid for by a corporation or a rich individual," points out Dr R.K. Niyagi, who recently held his son's wedding reception at the Delhi Gymkhana on a friend's membership. A far cry from a "home away from home".
But old clubs are aware of this and are busy upgrading themselves to stay in sync with the times. Says K B Menon, CEO of the Tollygunge Club, Kolkata: "Many children whose parents were members of this club have grown up here. Definitely there are other clubs, which may offer most modern facilities, but Tolly is a complete country club." Founded in 1895, with an 100-acre championship golf course, a swimming pool and a health club, it is ranked amongst the top 20 clubs of the world.
Others like the Gymkhana and the Bengal Club, too, are constantly upgrading themselves to suit the modern clientele without curtailing the kind of facilities which old members long for.
Sometimes they also offer niche services. The Royal Calcutta Turf Club, for instance, prides itself as being among the front-runners of equestrian sports in India ("Our main activity is racing and we have developed a way of life around it"). "Besides social standing, most of the old clubs have an ambience that many of the wannabes can't create even if they spend a lot of money," says Bhageria. "There is a certain charm about them and glamour that make clubbing a new experience every time."
Members often wonder if that is wholly true. Despite the restricted membership, the onslaught of new types of people ? with different idea of revelry ? can hardly be stemmed. As members admit, free flow of liquor mark every club night much more these days than ever before. At the Royal Calcutta Golf Club, the drinks being on the house the demand soars high. "When alcohol comes complimentary, no one looks past Black Dog," says a club authority on conditions of anonymity. At the same time, club events are becoming much more indigenised. Holi, Lohri, Baishakhi, Garba ? all now go hand-in-hand with Christamas and New Year celebrations.
According to members, if anything has changed it is the food. Those were the days when ladies in the Reynold's Room of the Bengal Club would confer over a cup of coffee with the head steward on the recipe for the club's special Apple Pie or the choice of Beckti Normandie.
And two weeks before Christmas, the steward's office would be invaded by them, eager to be the early birds for mince pies and roast turkeys.
"Christmas lunch used to be an institution in most clubs," says Menon, "but it's no longer the single-most important event. Nor are the culinary treasures pukka British anymore. They are getting increasingly Indianised. But then clubs are merely responding to the demands of their members."
Ad man, Ram Ray, also the chairman, communications of Bengal Club, however, refuses to accept that clubland is on fire. "Old is gold,' he says, "They are a combination of many things gracious and charming.
Great peer group, ambience, recipes, restaurants, bars, parties, residential chambers, unmatched service, intriguing history and some quaint traditions," adds Ray.
Let's face it, club culture dies hard. Indians have always had a love-hate relationship with institutions of the Raj. Although arguments over indigenisation of clubs have dragged on for many years after the British colonial rulers left, this particular legacy has outlasted 'dominion over palm and pine'. Even hiccups highlight how much clubs remain part of the Indian scene. Dress codes may be flouted, politicians may denounce colonial starch, clubland may fear a siege, but time and again the storm blows over. Post-imperial Indians would feel bereft if these relics of the past were swept away, leaving them with no yardstick of social acceptance and no totems to protest against. One might rephrase Oscar Wilde's Lady Bracknell: Only those who can't be members speak disrespectfully of clubs.
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