26 Jun 2025 / Shooting the Breeze

The Gidney Club

A 500 year history, give or take a few. Amongst the worthy works of mention about them is Allan Sealy’s Trotter Nama. There are others as well. Anglo-Indians, products of mixed marriages ---- white men and native women ---- were spawned sometime circa 1615 when Sir Thomas Roe brought the embassy of Queen Elizabeth I to the court of Jehangir. With him came roses, red wine, English mastiffs and greyhounds. Trade begat empire and all the rest of it. The first Christians of north India at Agra led to mixed marriages and what then were disparagingly called half-castes. Anglo-Indians were born. Cross-bred, robust, hardy, generally good-looking, flighty (often), talented, fond of finer things with a penchant for music, dance and food. Of course, they extended to much more, from parliament to soldiering to the arts to sports to theatre. On the whole a vibrant community, the spatz of 20th century India. Lost in the sea of people but holding their own. Anglo-Indians considering themselves more Anglo, less Indian usually, have generally been a caricature. Until about 1911 Anglo Indian was a term used by the British to describe themselves. Anglo Celtics for the most part. Then, it came to mean the Eurasians. On the whole, I liked Anglo-Indians. I liked their pizzaz, their verve, sense of style, that chin-up stance amidst decline and whiffs of economic hardship. I have beautifully arched feet but am flatfooted in dance --- yet I can tell foxtrot from jazz (Kill the Lights) to the quickstep ---- an Anglo-Indian tutorial. A fellow practitioner, I liked these fellows of tongue-in-cheek disdain. Their pidgin Hindi (oftentimes affected) amused me --- an aunt of mine nicknamed Mimi, used the same Hindi twist for effect. I am a convert to English confectionary and eating tea as opposed to merely drinking pedestrian chai. I liked Ang (slang) girls. They were pretty, catchy, vivacious, looked you in-the-eye, were passionate, no holds barred lovers, full bloodied, energetic and full of verve. I liked them. And they remain a fixture even though “my days are in the yellow leaf, the flower and fruit of love are gone….” I actually read in the vespers as Robert Walker, because I could then kiss the Rector’s daughter in what passed as a belfry {St. Andrew’s in Bandra, Bombay circa 1990}……The great waste of time, money, and all the rest of it I lost to the insidious gender….typically foolish traps all men plummet into…spilt milk….Now you’ll wonder about The Gidney Club. It goes like this:

When I was a boy an uncle of mine was friends with Michael Ferreira, the billiards champion. When the champ would be in Delhi, uncle would meet him at The Billiardiers in Connaught Circus. It was the mid-1980s, I was in college. The money I made gambling would sometimes take me to The Billiardiers. A young hostess was pretty and coquettish. I would hang around a tad longer. Her name was Annette, I remember. Of course, she was an Ang. One day Annette took me two blocks down to The Gidney Club. A watering hole for Anglo Indians. Lovely music, jukeboxes, and all the good stuff to seduce everything from eye to ear. I remember the music and the rumour that the great Chic Chocolate had performed once in the 1950s. There are foils always, layers and wrappers to establishments. The Gidney Club was no different, it was only better. I went up the K Block staircase to The Gidney Club a few years ago; it was in its death rattle. Chipped stairway, lots of dust, flaking walls and dead door. The usual pallor of death.

Nothing except some insolent servants, ugly shabby stragglers who knew nothing. Yes, there were the old sepias, sagging sofas and broken furniture, and all the remains of time’s rape and ravage. It looked for what it was, a clone of several clubs from the Raj. Obstinate to have lingered after its parent’s death and the flight of the Angs to white lands. I thought of other clubs like this which were now feted – the Calcutta Tollygunj Club, its credit note from Winston Churchill and such like…the Gidney Club was too meagre. I have learnt to float mostly in life, so while I rued my decision to visit what was once an occasional Sunday Gentleman’s outing for me, I made good. Later in my study, lounging in my armchair twenty five years older than the Gidney’s 1930s vintage, I smoked my pipe, closed my eyes, summoned Annette from The Billiardiers. It was yesterday one more. I was 20, the billiard shots fired, Annette smiled and we strolled down the corridors towards The Gidney Club. The world was on hold.