Ace of clubs

Inside track Name: Jay Singh Born: May 19, 1967 Profession: Joint Managing Director of JSM Family: Wife Roshni and 5-year-old son Ayaan First job: Investment banker in New York Favourite cuisine: Italian Favourite drink: Grey Goose and Soda Favourite destination: Paris Mantra: Don’t have one!

It’sanother big Friday night at IndoChine, the nightclub-restaurant complex in Mehrauli, Delhi, and owner Jay Singh is doing his “host” thing. He’s flitting from table to table, making introductions and pressing the flesh—from the pretty girls in the corner to a top Delhi cop to the Ambassador of Malawi (who’s having a lovely time as it happens). Is he working or is this downtime? When you’re in the hospitality business, these lines get blurry. But Singh is in no doubt.

“Oh I’m here to party,” he laughs. “This is where you find me after work—right here in my own clubs and restaurants. I bring my family, my kids love it. You can’t beat free cocktails!”

Tonight, however, his family’s not with him—they’re back home in Mumbai, where Singh lives and works. He runs the hit restaurant Shiro there, and the Hard Rock Café. But he’s in Delhi this weekend—it’s the IndoChine festival, a four-day blast of top DJs, which he runs each year as a gift to the club’s regulars. So, he’s table-hopping with a cocktail in hand and a broad grin.

And in a few days, he’ll be off to Goa to launch Shiro Poison, a new club he’s opening with DJ Aqeel—“large outdoor space, bang on the ocean, about two minutes walk from the Taj Holiday Village.” It’s a hard life, being Jay Singh.

“I’ve always been a fan of clubs,” he says. “It started when I was at college in the US. Back then, it was hardcore clubbing and everything that goes along with it. But you know, I was young. Now, I’m more into sophisticated spaces, dining with a bar scene, that kind of thing.”

Singh ought to know his way around the revelry business. He’s done his share over the years. Revelry and travel was how it all started. Born into privilege—his father ran the multinational company, Wimco—he was raised in Mumbai before moving to Switzerland to complete his schooling at the straight-laced British boarding school called Aiglon.

Then came Brown University, a giant American Ivy League university. “You can imagine, at that age. Academics definitely took a back seat. There were so many parties, so much of… everything.” He continued to burn the candle at both ends as an investment banker in Manhattan. “Let me see, there was Aubar, Delia’s, all those spots in Alphabet City in the early ’90s… Every weekend. It was a great time.”

There was a brief period of mellowing out somewhat when he bought two English mastiffs—Uran and Alia, and moved to Atwood Richards, the world’s largest bartering company.

His new employers had him set up the operation in India, so he took his then fiancé over to Bangalore—she came from Delhi and he came from Mumbai, so the Garden City seemed like neutral territory. But sure enough, after a few years, Singh couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He missed his heady New York days, the clubs and restaurants, the buzzing nightlife.

Bangalore was dead back then. Just a smattering of liquor licences handed to grotty little venues, nothing upscale, nothing swish. “The best place in town was a garage—people would come in at 9 p.m., sit on a steel chair and drink. No design, no decor, nothing—just a liquor licence.”

So in 1997, Singh opened up a nightclub called 180 Proof. That phrase from Gandhi—be the change you want to see. “We didn’t start off thinking that this was what we wanted to do,” he says. “I kept my barter company job. It was just a bit of fun—if we made money fantastic.”

They made money—180 Proof arguably changed the landscape of nightlife in Bangalore, and others were quick to follow. In fact, when a certain Sanjay Mahatani, opened the F-Bar in Bangalore, he was so successful, he effectively killed off Singh’s venture entirely—“ my business collapsed. It’s all about the newest thing in this kind of space.” So, Singh decamped to Delhi, to start over. He was 36. He opened up the F-Bar in Delhi, and made an ill-advised attempt to create the Indian McDonald’s.

And then the opportunity came up to bring the Hard Rock franchise to India. He couldn’t handle it alone—so he called in a partner, someone he knew could handle himself in the entertainment business. He called Sanjay, who put him out of business in Bangalore—they’re currently partners.

Today, things could not be rosier. Singh lives in a nice house on Mt. Pleasant Road, Mumbai, with his nuclear family of wife and five-year-old son, nine business properties on his books and a blue Porsche Boxster in the drive—“I considered the 911, but I prefer a midengine car to a rear-engine car,” he says. He prefers the Mumbai life, to Delhi, hands-down.

“In our business, Delhi can be a little bit rough, everyone has their own agenda. Mumbai people are more easy going, less interested in money and status.” Fittingly, Jay isn’t a showman— his style is strictly casual and comfortable, not a designer suit or label in sight.

His greatest extravagance, he says, is probably his sound system, his top of the line Rega amplifier. That and his taste for holidays—he’s constantly jetting off to Thailand, LA, Vegas, London, or best of all to a luxury tent in Ranthambore, to catch sight of a tiger.

I suspect, however, his greatest achievement is his lifestyle, that wonderfully blurry line between work and play. “Oh, I work a strict nine-to-five,” he protests. “I handle the day time stuff, the business side, and Sanjay handles the night—the staff, the food, the quality, the service. That way, when I come to my own places after work, I can enjoy myself!”

But here’s how the lines get fuzzy. The day after the whole IndoChine hurrah, Jay’s back in the club by the afternoon, looking a bit bleary while the workers sweep up. He’s got a wine-tasting at 6 p.m.

“Some vendors are bringing their bottles over, and I’ve got to decide whether I want it in my bar,” he shrugs. “Want to stick around?” I tell him I can’t do two nights in a row on the sauce, not at my age. So, I leave, and head home.

Perhaps an early night tonight. Then I get a text from Jay at 11.30 p.m. “Dude, you should have stayed! That wine tasting just finished!”