basement bhangra

Yday evening, I was skeptical on my decision to go for Basement Bhangra because my roommate's move-in procedure exhausted me before the bhangra event. However, the environ at the club ensured that I kept going without feeling any physical exhaustion.

SOBs holds the basement bhangra every first Thursday of the month. The place is just one stop away and a few blocks from Christopher St Path Stn. Initially, I met a couple of old acquaintances and later, met someone at the bar (btw, the bartender made some nice mojito). She posed an entry point for me into a pretty enthusiastic group of ladies, who were all colleagues at Amnesty. Devin, one of them, had been to India and was telling me her stories from Rajasthan and Delhi. Others had interest in grad school education and joining UN or private, for-profit work. With her, a funny event occured - that of an Indian young guy trying to show her his mojo and in the event, turning out to be a misfit in the crowd.

DJ Rekha didn't start the floor. It started off with some hip-hop music for a while - in order to warm ppl up. Later, the patrons started crowding the place. At around 9pm, the lessons for Bhangra started. Ppl stepped over each other trying to do the steps because the place was getting crowded. At around midnight, the peak crowd was present as barely anyone left and the crowd kept on pouring in. The temperatures soared and so did the suffocation.

DJ Rekha played a fresh new song of "Basement Bhangra" couple of times yday. She seemed fairly tomboyish - but she plays good music! Her protege, DJ Sweety was playing good numbers as well. The crowd kept on going constantly. The stage got invaded in a matter of minutes after the lessons were over. Non-Indians had some really nice freestyle moves when it came to having freestyle Bhangra. Of course, there were the hardcores Sardarjis who knew this folk dance since their childhood and showed off on the stage. They were followed by all types of ppl on the stage - after a while, it was an outrage !

The place was crowded with Indians - however, the proportion of non-Indians was sizeable. It reminded me of Carnegie Mellon somehow.

Overall, I would give the following ratings:
DJ's music: 8.5/10
Place's ambience: 7/10
Capacity planning: 6/10
Bar: 7/10