It’s time to fight for a night life beyond pubs, clubs in Bangalore

Even though Bangalore has a population of 9 million, the ‘city’ shuts its eyes at 10pm. There are no buses that ply or pharmacies, petrol pumps and eateries that are open at night. People are left at the mercy of auto drivers who fleece customers, cab drivers who may mug or kill you. Bangalore simply does not have a night life to brag about.

“In recent years, the term ‘night life’ has been hijacked by the party circuit,” rues Eshwar Sundaresan, a writer and one of the founders of Midnight’s Children of Bangalore, a group that campaigns for a better nightlife in the city. “We want to change this.”

He argues that a nightlife-friendly city is not about keeping pubs open till late. “That’s somebody else’s mission,” he says on his blog midnightschildrenofbangalore.wordpress.com. “We also do not want to get into the ethical/cultural/health-related aspects of staying up late. Instead, we acknowledge that urban society requires people who work late into the night.”  Beginning with a blog and a Facebook page, the campaign kickstarted two months ago.

“I always took it for granted that I would be able to reach home at midnight; that I don’t have to go to sleep hungry because all the shops would be open even after 10pm. When I settled down in Bangalore six years ago, I was shocked that a city as big as Bangalore could shut down this early at night,” he says.  While the well-off may be able to go to a star hotel to eat or take a cab back home, there are others who cannot afford it.

For the group consisting of Eshwar, his friend Jayaram Shankar, a fitness expert and owner of 360 degree at Koramangala, and others who have shown active interest in the campaign, the first step was to revisit the context under which rules were imposed a decade ago.

“We decided to ask people whether or not they were happy with the night life in the city. For the initial trials, we asked them if they would avail public transport if it was available. It was not surprising that all of them said they will,” says Jayaram.  Most Bangaloreans resignedly accepted the rules imposed on them, adds Eshwar.

One of the reasons that restrictions were placed on the city were safety concerns. To prove his point, Sundaresan asks, “Is it safer for a woman to travel alone at night when there are people on the streets or when it is deserted? Is it safer for her to take an auto back home or use public transport such as the bus or the metro?”

He concedes that anti-social elements do exist, but with the restrictions these are the same people who rule the streets at night. “The idea is that we should not have to live in fear of our own city.” 

Problems exist in any city, but these need to be dealt with rather than avoided. “There are solutions that can be implemented so as to not deprive people who find it necessary to be out at night from having basic amenities,” Jayaram says.