Constant Rave

It's ubiquitous; the steady thump of the 4/4 bassdrum the autotuned vocalization of a current or a recycled hit song and the following frantic synthesizer loop penetrate the soundscape everywhere. Delhi's public space seems to have fallen victim by a militant spoon-feeding marketing campaign conspiracy of house music producers, where no public space is left without a sound system blasting top 40 house remixes, making your daily activities into a constant rave party, whether you want it or not. Every single public space is filled with loud, abrasive, commercial electronic music.

The other day I went to a mall to catch a new Hindi-film. As I was being frisked by the jaded security guard at the door, one couldn't help feeling as if I was on the queue to a night club. Passing throught the marbled hallways of retail, I had to traipse through the food court, where obese punjabi kids were franticly stuffing their faces with various forms of deep fried matter to the beat of the inhouse DJ. Elbows sharpened I ventured on to the movie hall, hoping to enter a different aural space, only to realize that the soundsystem of the mall seemed to be connected to every single room in the complex, making the party inescapable. Come intermission (it is common in Indian movie halls to have a mid-film break), Mr DJ was immediately back at the decks. Feeling slightly nauseous, I had to seek comfort in the soothing atmosphere of the washroom, only to find myself in boogie wonderland. The volume of the music did not drop a single bar.

A lone toilet attendant, a small man in his late 50s maybe, was standing at the corner waiting to hand out paper tissues to people. The look on his face was resemblant of a thousand yard stare, "a limp, unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier" who has either seen too many piles of dead bodies or been subjected to severe torture. The man's aura was oozing with nihilistic detachment, barely concealed with a token smile.
He had been exposed to this rave party too long to care anymore.

It gets worse in bars. South Delhi sees new bars emerging these days quicker than ever, yet the concept seems to always remain the same. Every bar has to be a "lounge bar" where the amount of staff is usually manifold compared to the clientele, but one still has to make a real effort to get any service. An army of jaded staff is leaning against the counter while the house music party keeps blaring in the back. Any kind of attempt of conversation with your company is systematically terminated by the sheer volume of the music and the spontanious flow of conversation is often reduced to loud bursts of monosyllabic sentences which deliver the maximum amount of information. This needs to be done, because the music is so loud that every sentence must be carefully thought through to avoid wastage of vocal chords.

After two and a half years in Delhi, I have still yet to find a watering hole where one can have a quiet drink alone or a relaxed conversation with a friend or a partner after work over a beer. This seems to be too much to ask in the city of constant rave. Quiet pubs and bars where most of the noise is created by the bubbling conversations of customers is an integral part of the social fabric of western culture. The cliched euphenism "extension of living room" summarizes the way bars and pubs are seen in many western countries. They are welcome to people in suits, coctail dresses, working overalls as well as sweatpants and crocs. They are places where you can have a raging party or where you can sit quietly and wallow in your sorrow. Coming from Finland, where being sad and quiet is your general state of being, it is especially of vital importance to have spaces where one can sit in silence and stare at the bottom of your pint, comfortably basking in your wistful melancholia.

Having tried to market the concept of opening a cozy no-frills pub with only quiet music or no background music somewhere in south Delhi has only resulted in somewhat tepid interest and shrugs among Delhiites. One explanation that has been offered to me is that indians generally are uncomfortable with silence, hence in case of premature death of conversation in company, the silent spaces can be quickly filled by Mr.DJ. Also, the concept of going to a bar for a casual drink whenever generally seems to be still a bit of an alien concept, rather it is always more of a remarkable social event for which one needs to dress up and make an extra effort, perhaps the loud techno and house music is seen as a part of the desired atmosphere. Be it as it may, there is certainly a market in Delhi for a cosy corner with an extensive bar menu, comfy chairs and no music but the ripples of conversations in the background.