Besharam

I had never been to Besharam before the night I was billed to spin and quite excited to take in the sights and sounds of this interesting event, which draws nearly 1,000 people every first friday of the month. The venue, a place called Fly Nightclub, was downtown actually located just up Yonge Street from Toronto's quaint version of Times-Square at Yonge+Dundas - right in the centre of the action, as such.

At about 10pm I jacked my gear into the house mixer and it was off to the land of dubby tabla-laced downtempo as people started coming in the door - I was playing in the lounge, which was a holding tank for people before the main space opened at 11pm. Nestled in a corner next to the bar, I watched an array of folks come in, order their first drink and check each other out. The crowd was probably 90% South Asian and looked ansy to get on the dancefloor in the main room - not many people seemed to even notice that I was driving the system, um, that is until the aural terrain became rocky and Asian Dub Foundation screamed "Flyova... Flyova" at full volume - which was more abrasive than usual as the subs kept cutting out and pushing the sound system's high frequencies louder.

Right when I got a bit crazy and launched into drum'n'bass, people started pouring out of the room towards the selection of hindi-remixes, hip hop anthems and so on, which they had come to hear spun by special-guest DJ Jiten, as well as Amita. For the most part of the night, people drifted in and out of the lounge and I was really surprised not to see curious looks as they passed through - everyone's focus was upstairs so I shut down early and booted off to the main room to see what was going on...

...There were probably about 600 people in this square space, which featured a mezzanine that held the DJ booth and a bit of space for people to dance or trainspot (the preferred pass-time it seemed)overlooking the dancefloor. The club's decor was pretty generic (imagine colored strobe lights with all walls etc painted black), but it seemed that the majority of Besharam-goers were looking at each other anyway. That is, lots of men were - and not just looking; a couple of female friends of mine were ceasingly harangued all night by sketchy (and cop-a-feely) fellows who probably have altars at home with garlands blessing Shah Rukh Khan in his more goonda style roles!

Asides from the goondas ("ruffians") mainly playing wallflower, lots of people were having fun - which I'll take to be a sign of a good party. In fact, the dancefloor was pretty packed the whole night and sing-along did seem to happen at points. Reminiscent of DJ Rekha's Basement Bhangra parties at SOB's in NYC, Besharam is one of those large-venue regular-events that attracts an array of bollywood-aficionados, sketchy and drunken girl-watchers-and-grabbers,as well as souped-up honda driving fellows you might find in a mainstream club on any other night.
This party is worth checking out but definately does not please the palate if you're hungry for electronic music or interesting people to chat with.