Delhi After Dusk

Published in The Times of India, July 6, 2007

Delhi’s nightlife can race from the dizzying highs of a sweaty, spirited session on the dance floor to the earthy and sumptuous after-hours meal at the dhaba… Game?

AMIN ALI

I have some friends who are night birds—they go home when the sun is just about warming up. Well, they are nocturnal. Me, I have started loving the moon and starts too i.e whatever polluted city sky allows us to see of them.
And turning nocturnal helps you visit all the interesting places that stay open in Delhi when others have downed their shutters—fine places where you can sip on tea laced with ginger and cardamom, nondescript joints where you can gobble up sinfully rich paranthas, patisseries where the pastry layers are so fine that they crumble before you blink… Temptation enough for anyone to take a night out and tag along with the friends...

11 pm Off We Go


The nightclub Capitol at Hotel Ashok was packed. ‘Don’ night was going on—in the dimly-lit room, most men were dressed like Shah Rukh Khan and lit one cigarette after another to smoke like the King. The women preferred their wine and champagne; their ensembles in red, lilac, pink, even white, were bright spots in a dark night.
There was great music, there were some awesome dancers, burning the floor. But what’s a night out without great grub? My wobbly knees too needed rest but a five-star coffee shop can be quite a dampener in terms of pricing. My belly needed more than beer…

2 am Damn Hungry


Stepping out, Comesum café at Nizamuddin railway station was the unanimous choice. It was abuzz with post-party revellers. Resembling a five-star coffee shop, it is eye-catchingly clean. It is well lit, well guarded and quite safe, at any time of day or night. The alfresco seating makes it the perfect spot for dinner with an exhaustive menu—Mughlai, Chinese, South Indian... Girls always want their fat-free options, and Comesum had answers to everything. The food was a real feast—hot, buttery chapatis with aromatic dal along with smoking tandoori chicken… aah, just right.

4 am Tea Time


The girls were gone and we decided to have tea. We knew where to look—the tea stall next to Shivaji stadium. On the way, we crossed India Gate, which looked simply stunning, all lit up. The tea stall was brimming with people. But wait! It is not only about tea. Here you would know thousand and one ways to customise a parantha— potatoonion mix, cheese-chilli mix, egg-sugar mix, radish-carrot mix… whatever you ask. The cars lining the road bore testimony to the popularity of the place. The tea was laced with cardamom and its sinful aroma wafted in the air.

6 am Breakfast For Home


And then the phone rings; my sister wants me to get something. Not paranthas, though. I knew where to get her the breakfast she wanted—Panditji’s opposite Town Hall in Chandni Chowk. A refrigerator sponsored by a soft drink giant is perhaps the only new addition in this old but popular eatery. Breakfast begins after 5 am—roasted bread with dollops of butter, scrumptious coconut cookies... We had split and were having fun at various locations— one sipping tea under the Moolchand flyover, another gorging on a four-egg omelette in a roadside shack in Gurgaon.

7 am Home!


It was a long night and back home I was greeted by a happy sister who loved the buttered toast and biscuits. As a thank you gesture she closed the gates gently. I slipped into bed. It had been an eventful Saturday night, and I had attended more than one party, been to more than one kiosk. Delhi’s nightlife would be so drab without these. That night, it was more than food—I bumped into an old friend at the pub, another at the tea stall...And they say they want to put an end to streetsy fun. Where would I go for my next night-out then? Let me get up and take them on. Till then... zzz!