Clubs

When I posted last week, the monsoon was late and there was a drought.  The monsoon is definitely here now.  It rains a few times a day, and just as I predicted, the mosquitos are thick.  Last night I fell asleep with my knee pushed against part of my mosquito netting and discovered that mosquito netting only works when there is a GAP between the net and your body.  I woke up with 12 - 15 mosquito bites in a small circle on the part of my knee that was touching the netting.  I can't imagine what it would be like sleeping in the open air.

Last Saturday night two friends and I went out looking for a club to go to.  The best club in Pune, supposedly, is a place called Scream: The Club.  But we decided to save Scream: The Club for another night and go to an area called MG Road instead.  MG Road is fun, but you have to find the right places.  The first club we went to wanted a Rs. 600 cover, probably because we were single men.  This is more than I would pay for a bar in New York, so we left.  The second club was an Australian-themed bar called Toons, which was full of drunken Indian men embracing and singing along to Megadeth, Metallica, and Coldplay at the top of their lungs; kind of like karaoke except without taking turns.  Walking into alternate universes can be fun, but you don't always need to stay there for too long.  We left after a beer.  Finally we wandered into the Aqua Bar, on the ground floor of a nice hotel.  The Aqua Bar was small, and like much nightlife in this city, it was mostly men (the few women were there with their boyfriends or sister's boyfriends).  But the men at this place were having a total blast.  There was a DJ playing some great Hindi House and then some reggaeton, and we were welcomed with typical Pune excitement.  "Hey man, where are you from?  What's your good name?  Come dance, you have to learn to dance Indian."  Before we knew it the entire club was on the dance floor going crazy with us, and there was a real party going on.  Whenever we tried to take a break someone would come grab our hands and pull us back over.  One guy had a big pair of cowboy boots on, and he kept running up to us and yelling, "YEEEEEEE HAAAAAA!!!!"  When the music finally stopped and the club was closing down, we sat around chatting with some of the patrons.  Someone tried to tell us some Sanskrit riddles that he learned from a friend, but we couldn't answer them and I think he garbled them anyway.  They were mildly dirty, if I understood correctly; something having to do with boobs.  Another guy came up and spoke to us in good English, and all of a sudden his accent entirely disappeared and he sounded just like an American, and then he switched back to his normal voice and had an Indian accent again.  His friends cracked up and someone explained that he works at a call center.  Finally the bartender kicked us out and we all took rickshaws home and went to bed.

And that was my July 4th.  I felt more American on this July 4th than I ever have on any July 4th ever.  No pictures this week.  But next weekend we take a field trip to a city called Kolhapur to look at some ancient stone inscriptions, and I'll probably have some good pictures when I get back from there.  Some guys at the club assured us that Kolhapur has the spiciest food of any place in India, so I will also report back on that claim.

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