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Sunday, December 04, 2005

Chp 49. Tuscan Verve

After the name “Taika” hit the streets of Bangalore a couple of months back, the latest word on the street seems to be “Tuscan Verve” (actually not that latest, more like 2 months old, but its undergoing a change every now n then).

Tuscan Verve, a new lounge pub in our city, seems to be making a lot of waves among the hiphop Gen-X. Downright chillax in nature, it has the complete ingredients of a typical Lounge Bar. What hit me when I first entered the place was the settings and ambience. Déjà vu of good old Hyderabad when the Lounge fever first hit the city two years ago. Infact a regular “lounger” from H’bad might mistake the place for “Touch” (Ironically, we had our IIM-B fresher’s Meet dinner at the restaurant attached to “Touch”)

Dim neon rays, no disco lights and lotsa extravagant sofas (as compared to an average Pub). But that particular night was Tuesday night, christened “Hiphop Night”. Rihanna’s “Pon de Replay” and Pussycats’ “Don’t cha” seem to fill the air as young homies and biyatches of all ages bounced their bootie from east coast to the west.

Really enjoyed that night, although it felt a bit weird to “yo wazzaa” in that setting. I did feel something was definitely out of place with all that arrangement and especially with the music blasting and shaking the very floor you are walking on with thundering woofers. Very “un-loungely”. But then, once the alcohol slowly sets in, one slowly fused with the system. No draught beer, just pint. Each pint costing the usual 100 bucks. And à la Sparx, girls free entry ofcourse, and guys gotta shell out 300 bucks with 200 cover. Unless ofcourse if one is a regular, but then that’s an urban legend with a deep conspiracy theory of its own….

Hiphop night was covered by DJ Ivan, the same dude who used to DJ at Club-X. Apart from that, they had a very impressive line up of other DJs for every other night like DJ Nash, DJ Wayne, DJ DeeJ etc. Each night has its own theme ofcourse.

But just as there is a silver lining on every cloud, there is also a “Yang” to counter the “Yin” so that good and evil will always be balanced. Negative markings will definitely go to the dance-floor. Tightly packed, it may seem like just another attached dance floor. But once you’re in there, believe me, its nothing like those packed times we used to have at most of the regular Pubs with attached boogie floors. The dance floor is open to one and all. Meaning, there are more guys than the opposite sex in there. Club-X on Sat nites or Sparx on Thu nites used to be packed, but at least the bouncers let “couples only” inside the dance floor. That was fun.

In Tuscan Verve, sofas encircled the dance floor. That was quite reasonable as people can relax and look at the people dancing or sit with somebody special amidst all the hoola-hoo or simply catch their breath, but then, along with the sofas, there were tables present, where people could leave their glasses n stuff, hence making the total area of comfortable “danceable” space much smaller.

And here’s the worst thing about the dance floor. With a place as tightly packed as that night, it kinda gets a bit irritating with people coming past you now and then while you’re dancing. But then, that happens at every disc, so it’s something one has to live with. After all, when you are entering the dance floor for the first time before you finally find your “spot”, do remember that you are brushing past many other people who are already there. But that place Tuscan Verve was different. Its not just people brushing past you every damn second, but waiters. Lots and lots of waiters. With trays. Serving those people who are sitting on the sofas encircling the dance-floor. That was so irritating! I did not enjoy dancing at all that night. Very bad management indeed. I could see a lot of other people around me too who were completely irritated with this.

But apart from that, everything was great I guess. The management staff showed great PR during the entire event and socialized with everybody. Most of them were from Club-X. Met a lot of people I know and it was fun that way. Saw a lot of familiar faces too, people I’ve always seen at these kinda places but hasn’t actually spoken to. The party ended around 11:30. By 12, the street was empty, once again reminding Bangalore about the cruel talibanization decree declared by the Police.