The Strong Silent Type

In this business, mostly size matters. Susheel, who has been around for a decade, wears it like a badge. 8216;8216;It8217;s all about attitude and physique,8217;8217; explains the muscleman at Fire 038; Ice, Mumbai8217;s hip hot spot.

One of them even has a name to fit the image. Tyson didn8217;t know what the word bouncer meant when he walked into Ecstacy, a South Mumbai night club. In fact, he chanced upon the career because his friend8217;s father, who owned Ecstacy, zeroed in on him at the college campus. 8216;8216;I love my job and enjoy meeting new people,8217;8217; says Tyson who now works at Athena. But the best part, he8217;s quick to inform us: 8216;8216;The girls say that if Tyson is here then we are safe.8217;8217;

Pune-based Balram Harvans and Sheikh Akhthar Hussein are pros at the troubleshooting game. After all, they have been at it for seven years at 10 Downing Street TDS. 8216;8216;Everyone seems nice at the entrance. But it8217;s shocking to see some of the 8216;decent8217; people after a few drinks,8217;8217; says Akhtar.

Kharb, who has also been a personal bodyguard to Salman Khan, Manoj Bajpai and Fiji golfer Vijay Singh reveals, 8216;8216;Dealing with ministers8217; sons is the biggest nightmare.8217;8217; Susheel, who trains the younger bouncers, says only 50 per cent of the trouble-makers are actually willing to resolve matters amicably. It8217;s usually the 8216;new8217; crowd, which is a stranger to nightlife, that fuels the fire, according to these experts. 8216;8216;Women who walk in alone are also often harassed by men who want to dance with them,8217;8217; says Jeetu, one of the 10 bouncers employed at Fire 038; Ice.

While those Hrithikesque biceps often do the trick, well-known restaurateur A D Singh describes his first bouncer, who looked nothing like our Bollywood hero. 8216;8216;This very tough and sassy 20-year-old Parsi dancer made sure that no mischief-maker walked into our place.8217;8217; he recalls. This was 13 years ago, at AD8217;s new venture Just Desserts, when the concept of commissioning burly watchguards had barely picked up. Till date, AD maintains that a polite manager or better still, a manageress should serve the purpose of ousting rabble-rousers.

But the bouncers themselves feel that the job is easier said than done. Of late, Mumbai8217;s top security agencies are wary of training or providing the services of bouncers to night clubs. 8216;8216;We stopped providing bouncers because of the growing number of brawls that erupt at these places,8217;8217; says Vikas Verma, who heads Property Guards in Mumbai. In this profession, it8217;s mostly word of mouth that serves as a placement agency. 8216;8216;Most bouncers are personal trainers at gyms,8217;8217; explains Waseem Khan who heads Velocity, a South Mumbai discotheque.

How do they deal with the friction? No flexing those muscles or using physical strength at any point of time, they tell us. The brawn is for mere display. The bouncers who are positioned at different corners of the club communicate on walkies, signalling one another on the first sign of trouble. 8216;8216;We politely request people to have fun and stop creating trouble. If they don8217;t, we show them the way out,8217;8217; says Rohit.

And what do these men in black do while others paint the town red? 8216;8216;We function against nature,8217;8217; says Rohit with a twinge of sadness. While the mornings are reserved for duty sleep, the entire afternoon is spent pumping iron and it8217;s an MTV Grind of a different sort at night. While Akthar is a car mechanic, Balram makes time to run a small groceries shop with the help of his family by day.

The professionals confess that many of celebrities who hang out at their clubs are 8216;good friends8217;. The seasoned lot seems to be hooked onto the famous DJs who are flown down from around the world. 8216;8216;It8217;s not about VJs and models anymore, we like listening to a different kind of music every other week,8217;8217; says Rohit adding, 8216;8216;We also party but we8217;d rather not go to a club.8217;8217;

And who says bouncers don8217;t have a heart! 8216;8216;We keep lemon juice handy to reduce the nasha of some drunken guests and ask known rickshaw-wallahs to drop them home. If they remember what happened the next day, they come back to express their gratitude,8217;8217; echo the TDS peacekeepers.

Of course, the celebrity tales are many but this one8217;s a gem: 8216;8216;I remember when some guy tried to act fresh with Lisa Ray and I handled him immediately. She kissed me on the cheek. I8217;ll never forget that moment!8217;8217; winks Balram pointing towards his left cheek. And Rohit8217;s chest is all puffed up when he says, 8216;8216;Bobby Deol is my friend.8217;8217;

But when it8217;s back to business, it looks like Des8217;ree anthem might turn into the bouncer theme song 8212; You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger8230;

With inputs from Amba Batra in Delhi and Rahul Venkit in Pune