Maybe I’ll never be able to pronounce the word “yacht” correctly. It requires an uncultivated fluency. So whenever I taxi it down to the Royal Yacht Club, a tennis balls’ throw away from the Gateway of India, I try my yaach-yotch variations out on the cabbies, who in any case don’t know where it’s located.
Just as well. Founded in 1846 by the British who partook of sailing and then a gin-and-tonic later, time and elegance have indeed stood still there.
Except that there are two electronic contraptions to prevent gatecrashers of idlers posing as guests of members.
The guarded little “gates” open only with membership cards, which means that you have to beg, plead and remind your host to instruct the reception of your grand arrival, to avoid embarrassment.
Once inside, you might as well be trotting on wooden floors where the viceroys and governors maintained an exclusive enclave for high tea and quail dinners. Incidentally, a few of the staffers still wear sailor outfits, a brass bell has survived through generations, plus there’s this somewhat exaggeratedly dubbed “nostalgia gallery” — actually a row of photographs of serene sails under clear skies dating back to the colonial era. The photos are evocative, masterfully composed and printed: so why doesn’t some intrepid soul do a coffee table book on the club and its memorabilia artefacts before the precious stuff goes whoosh with the wind?
As for the daily menu in the dining room, it’s as quaint as quaint can be: essentially “continental” with roast chicken accompanied by mashed potatoes topping the list of must-chomps. But of course, dhansak does make a guest appearance, served faithfully once a week, like it is at the Ripon Club.
Am I making too much of nostalgia? Not at all. You just have to see the magnificent stone-block architecture and flop down on one of the canewood sofas there, to assure yourself that there’s more to life than rush-grab-make-moolah. Taste the serenity. But of course, you’ll have to find a member who’ll get you past those khulja sim-sim gates of the electronic kind.