Are you a member? does it matter?

It is one of India’s oldest clubs — elite,clannish zones set up by the British in the late 18th and 19th centuries,ones which even now carry a reputation for an exclusivity that is almost anachronistic. Walk into the Delhi Gymkhana Club — and you can’t do that in your collarless tees and rubber chappals — and you will see a relic of the Raj: separate areas for the members’ domestic help who are barred from entering the colonnade building. Is there something still appealing about this overt snobbery? Is membership to these clubs a matter of privilege even in 2010? Why would an upwardly mobile,post-liberalisation India with plenty of avenues for recreation be interested in these select institutions?

Watching the sun set over giant neem trees and into the river,Jaya Tambay-Patwardhan,a temporary member of the Madras Club,talks about how she made her first friends in Chennai here. After two decades in California,when the Patwardhans arrived in Chennai six years ago,the club,with its soups and cutlets,gyms and pools,was a familiar world redolent of the clubs of her childhood. “I’d come here three times a week. While I went for a walk or to the gym,the children would catch up with their friends. That’s the thing about a club — you develop a sense of belonging,” she says.

The fellowship of like-minded people is the most important service a club renders,says PM Belliappa,a retired IAS officer,sipping a mocktail of orange and lemon juice. “It’s a club drink,known as ‘cricket’ or ‘ghost’,” he says in the dining hall of the Madras Gymkhana Club. A firm believer in the institution of clubs and their rituals,and a member of several across the country,Belliappa smiles wistfully when a waiter brings in a plate of peanuts with just one spoon for the entire table — a discernible marker of mediocrity brought on by ever-growing membership. “The participation of professionals — company executives,government officials,doctors and lawyers — has diminished in clubs across the country. Now,self-employed businessmen and young people with financial wherewithal become members. Subsequently,the culture of the clubs has also changed,” he says,waving to a regular across the hall.

The British set up the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club,the pioneer,in 1792. The Royal Western India Turf Club (RWITC),the first club in Bombay,was then set up in 1810. Chennai got the Madras Club in 1832. Delhi,which only rose in the pecking order of the Raj in the early 20th century,got its Gymkhana Club in 1913. And most of these clubs excluded Indians at least in the pre-1857 days. Says Pavan Malhotra,entrepreneur and co-author of an exhaustive coffee-table book,Elite Clubs of India: “When membership to these clubs was later opened to Indians,usually elite civil servants or friends of the British,it was a matter of privilege.”

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Now it is privilege and perks. Forty-one-year-old Vivek Menon,chief executive of civil infrastructure company Invicus,aspiring politician and true-blue Bangalorean,sits in the stately lobby of the Bangalore Club amid a hum of unhurried conversations. “When I was young,my father would have a beer while I went swimming. Today,I bring my kids here. Nothing has changed,” he says. For Menon,the club is like a second home,which reminds him of the badminton matches of his youth,of Sunday brunches past,of his wedding reception in the grand ballroom. Situated in the heart of the city,it is also a convenient point for him to meet up with Bangalore’s who’s who. On weekends,it turns into a recreational facility for his children. “Pools and sporting facilities are not readily available in Bangalore. Some five-star hotels grant access to their courts,pools and gyms,but these are often not affordable,” says Menon.

The Bangalore Club,set up in 1863,has 6,500 members — of whom 4,500 are members for life — and about 20,000 dependants with access to the facilities. Fresh membership requests are not being entertained — unless you’re ready to pay lakhs of rupees for a three-year associate membership or a corporate membership,and even these are few and far between. The wait to get a permanent membership here is about 30 years. If you apply when you are 25,the minimum age,you might get membership closer to retirement.

Today,you are either born into an elite club membership or you wait it out for decades before your application comes up for consideration. At the Calcutta Club,president Dr Manoj Saha,a reputed cardiologist,says the waiting list is 1,000-strong. “My guess is most of them don’t know what the club stands for. Clubs are not just a leisure haunt,” says Saha,who boasts of his club’s “intellectual pedigree”. “A member of our club,when in the company of people from five different professions,should be able to have an intellectually stimulating conversation with them,but the younger members are keen on events rather than discussions,” he says.

The reason for frequenting clubs or seeking membership,however,is far from intellectual. It is exclusivity. This is where you are one drink and one degree away from the people who matter. The Delhi Gymkhana Club has restricted new entries,says major-general (retd) PR Dhawan who has been a member since the Seventies. But being part of this elite club means entering a rarefied circle of bureaucrats and business honchos,politicians such as Rahul Gandhi who was allowed in the “eminent persons category” and the capital’s upper crust.

Sridhar Ramanujam,CEO of Bangalore-based Brand-Comm,says,“Important associations can happen at these clubs. Here you get to meet influential people. When you spend time with someone as a fellow member,relationships tend to build.” He is a member of most of the elite clubs in Bangalore,including the Bangalore Club,Bangalore Golf Club and the Karnataka Golf Association.

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If it is not exclusivity,then it is exceptional sporting facilities that the new elite is looking for. Abhishekh Bose,a 31-year-old entrepreneur in Kolkata,is a member of the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club primarily because of its sporting facilities. “Cricket is my lifeline. That’s why I am here,” he says.

The Delhi Golf Club’s 220 acres of green dotted with ruins from the Lodhi dynasty has golfers with their new clubs and handicaps. Simar Dugal,owner of Pigment Art gallery,inherited membership from her father. She comes to the club almost daily for a round of golf,sometimes with her 18-year-old son who too has taken to the game. “This is a place frozen in time,a refuge,” she says,munching on Rs 15 sandwiches. That is one of the intriguing bonuses of being a member of these elite clubs. After paying lakhs of rupees or waiting for decades,or both,when you enter the club,you can enjoy a cup of tea for Rs 3,cheap chicken tikkas and chips and some of the finest bars in town.

Many clubs have come up in big cities over the past 20 years,some of them offering facilities and food far better than those at the grand old ones. The Classic Golf Resorts,set up in Gurgaon in 1995,for instance,has a signature golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus and the stunning backdrop of the Aravallis. What they seem to lack is the snob value,the prestige factor. “These new clubs actively solicit memberships,while it is not easy to get into the old clubs — and that makes all the difference,” says Pavan Malhotra.

Clubs like the India International Centre (IIC) in Delhi are known to be extremely picky. In 2006,eyebrows went up when then Union railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was denied membership. The circumstances of rejection remained vague,but insiders let on that investigations faced by the minister on charges of corruption made him unsuitable for the club,considered an intellectual hub. “It is more an academic centre than a club,” says author and documentary filmmaker K Bikram Singh,who is one of the 6,597 members of the club that prides itself on its cultural programmes. The former civil servant joined the IIC in the 1970s when,he says,the Delhi Gymkhana “was becoming a place for the new rich”. Now,his visits to the Gymkhana are restricted to once in two months,compared with thrice a week at the IIC.

At the Delhi Gymkhana Club,Colonel (retd) Dhir S Alag,a member of the governing committee,recalls the uproar that followed in 2007 when the admission of Pakistani high commissioner Shahid Malik was held up because he could not make it to the “at home” meeting — a euphemism for interview by committee members. Alag,67,also remembers how former BJP MP Dau Dayal Joshi was not admitted to the club in 1991 because he was wearing a dhoti; he subsequently raised the issue in the Lok Sabha. “LK Advani was politely asked to change his attire when he came in a dhoti for the at-home meeting. He soon returned in an achkan and now he is a member,” says Dhawan,84,who spends his evenings in the bridge room,sipping tea with toast over a game of cards.

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But that is not a youngster’s idea of entertainment. So some of the most fastidious clubs have done away with the old-world dress code of tie-and-jacket and have allowed new facilities on their premises—like a Café Coffee Day outlet at the Bangalore Club and a Lakme salon at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai.

A club membership is a legacy lost on most of the younger generation,says Rafiq Sait,who owns retail stores including the Raymond franchise in Chennai. A member of the Madras Cricket Club,he says his son is entitled to membership to the club but rarely uses it. “There are several children who’d rather go to the neighbourhood gym than to a club where their dad hangs out,” he says. Priyanka Athavale,a 27-year-old hospitality professional from Mumbai,would rather pay the cover charges at a nightclub on a night out than spend about Rs 5 lakh on a life membership at the Royal Western India Turf Club or Rs 7 lakh on the Yacht Club. “Elite clubs hold no attraction for me,” she says. “It’s mostly just old people with old money who go there. If I wanted to join a club,it would have to be young and dynamic,where I can meet like-minded people and where I can network and further my business relations.”

A host of clubs has taken advantage of this disenchantment. In Bangalore,the Karnataka Golf Association has surged ahead of the older Bangalore Golf Club to become the most happening club in the city,attracting young crowds with New Year’s Eve parties and Christmas bashes. Kolkata’s Tollygunge Club,a sporting club that has produced some of the best riders in the country,has gone for an overhaul,organising everything from rock shows to Carnatic evenings. Anil Mukherjee,a member for 30 years and part of the managing committee,says,“People would rather socialise over a drink than play a game of tennis after work.”

Just as some clubs are watering down their focus on sport,niche sporting clubs such as the Royal Madras Yacht Club and the Royal Bombay Yacht Club,which started out as leisure sailing groups,are riding the competitive spirit of the times and going pro. The Madras Boat Club,with its 1,000-odd members,similarly,is intent on rowing. Perched on the Adyar bank next to the Madras Club,it has an ever-busy restaurant and a glittering bar.

But old-timers are convinced they have seen better days. At the Bangalore Club,where men still have to wear western dress and shoes and women with very short hemlines cannot walk in,Sundara Murthy,a septuagenarian and honorary life member,talks with the nostalgia of someone who has watched the world go from trot to canter to gallop. “Back in the old days,everyone wore white gloves and jacket and tie. People spoke so nicely. On a Saturday evening,the men’s bar would be so crowded that it was impossible to get a drink. You would find IAS,IPS officers dropping by for lunch almost every day,” says the former businessman,seated on a leather couch next to the famous display of an accounts book where the Rs 13 that Winston Churchill owed the club was written off.

In the lofty brotherhood of these clubs,everything has changed,and yet,nothing has changed.

(With inputs from Dhiraj Nayyar,Pooja Pillai,Piyasree Dasgupta,Vandana Kalra and Nupur Chaudhuri)