Tabla Beats

If you’re ready to jam midweek on a Wednesday night,head to Greater Kailash II’s Smokehouse Grill,where once a month,on a Wednesday,Mumbai-based percussionist JonQUI flies down to Delhi from Mumbai to get the club grooving. Playing alongside Smokehouse’s DJ Cheenu,JonQUI is surrounded by multiple instruments—tabla,djembe,darbouka dhol and the drum—- which he thumps tirelessly for about two hours. “The combination of a DJ and a live act together at the same time is what sets the muic apart,” says JonQUI,who initially started as a tabla player and moved on to multiple percussions over time. Meanwhile,right next door to Smokehouse,Kuki the club was going through a reinvention this Wednesday,and will now be known as Pure. To mark this change,Hip-Hop artiste Grandmaster Flash couldn’t get the crowd going,and many people ended up at Smokehouse instead. Jonqui,who’s worked on albums with Kailash Kher and Medieval Punditz does a live gig most nights,either in Delhi or Mumbai. “There’s a novelty factor about the tabla at the nightclub,” he says. Beat that.