THAT BANDRA SPIRIT

Jeet Thayil and Anil Kably have curated Five Oh, a poetry and indie music festival in Bandra

- Peter Griffin

In the mid-aughts, Mumbai’s Bandra was still in the process of transitioning to its NRI-and-white-expatmagnet-and-hipsterprecinct era, but it was already where restaurants and watering holes came and went with bewildering rapidity. Many of the first wave of discotheques and pubs that launched in Mumbai post-liberalization had downed their shutters for various reasons.

Around then, in 2004, Zenzi opened its doors. And earned a name not for the usual reasons of great cuisine or an exceptional bartender but for the kind of events that happened there. There was music, of course. But no Bollypop or trending chart music: DJs came and did their sets, and soon there was live music too, big names but also experimental acts that went on to be big names, hopeful singer-songwriters standing alone at the microphone, and then poetry, spoken word, comedy, dance, performance.