Evolution in Restaurant Nightlife Entertainment
Picture a crossroads in the middle age in Europe or an entry-point of a city or village in ancient India. The lone building you are looking at is called an Inn or tavern and its Indian counterpart is “Dharamshalas”, “Viharas” or “Sarais” depending on which time-zone of India’s Monstrous History you are concentrating on. These are the early Restaurants and Hotels.
Now go inside the Inn and you will see at the other end of the small-roofed hall a person at Harp, Violin or a Wind instrument right beside the hearth. Now he is a traveler and is not paid to play here but of course he can’t miss any opportunity to show his talent. People are gathered around him and the innkeeper is happy to repeat the beer and beverages for the people stuck in their stools because of him.
The trend ran even thicker in the Indian Subcontinent. In Dharamshalas in India, a Flute or Sitar player would be there beside the small temple and a Devadasi doing ancient dance forms at the center of it, people would gather around repeating Prashads or whatever they served there, they of course didn’t pay for it but coins went in the donation box all the same. In the Mughal era, Sarais or Musafirkhanas were ornamented by Courtesans or Tawaifs and that Umrao Jaan or Pakeezah was the reason of half the economy of that place. So you see that is where all of it started.
Most of these cases had a touch of monopoly but then owners didn’t exactly pay for the entertainer. After that throughout the 19th century along with the Industrialization, the rising competition didn’t leave the Food-Providing Industry alone, you couldn’t even call it industry back then. Now there are few more Inns parallel to the both roads crossing and few more Dharamshalas stood before the entry-point. Now each Dharamshala owner wants to have most of the travelers in the coming festival. The arrogant owner of the original Shala doesn’t change a thing but one owner of a new Shala thinks a few steps ahead and hires a local Dangal group and arranges a Kushti Competition at the ground in the middle of his Dharamshala. Now you can imagine who got his rooms filled even before the festival started.
And still some people nowadays wonder what is the point of a live band in a room where people are eating. The live band or other performer works as a lubricant between the front and the back of the house. It smooths the whole process and warms up the atmosphere.
As long as you know what kind of music or performance suits a restaurant hall, the environment will be calm and encouraging. Now if you put up hard rock and still expect calm in your audience then maybe you need to sort out your choices.
Now if it ever comes in your mind that it’s not worth the money you put into it, remember the fate of the original Shala owner.
Ever saw a wreckage of a building and wondered what it had been in its time, well, now you know.
