If you are bored of your regular music groups and movie clubs, hit some of the quirky hobby groups like the Tall Club or the Delhi Heritage Photography Club. Shrabasti Mallik explores a sub-culture you want to be a part of
Did you even know that there was a special club for tall peopleIJ Just recall those classmates who always stood at the end of the assembly line — the poor guys could not even hide from the teachers — and were often the ones we would ask to hand a chart paper on the classroom wall. Just imagine an entire club dedicated to them.
All of those who tower over their peers and friends can join the Tall Club of Delhi. The club discusses the problems that the vertically endowed go through in everyday life, promote awareness and foster friendship. Men above six feet and women over five foot and eight inches get to be the core members. Even if you don’t make the cut, you can still attend their monthly meetings.
Gone are those days when a person would join his Sunday yoga group or laughter club at the park or spend some extra hours on the treadmill. With changing times, people are adopting new and fun ways to indulge their hobbies and are forming weird yet quirky clubs, which very few can even imagine (as they say that imagination has no boundaries and we believe that now). Whether it be the Tall Club or a club for book lovers, Delhiites are giving regular dance, music and acting groups a miss and are soaking their feet in some offbeat pursuits.
For the sports enthusiasts, we know that there are very few who would understand you — working out even when you are eating. If you will, you can join the Running Fitness Bootcamp which operates in Deer Park, Hauz Khas Village every Saturday. “We usually start our day with the strength routine which involves doing a lot of squatting followed by push ups and pull ups. Before we start the exercises we make sure that everybody at the camp sits for a yoga session because it opens up the body,” said Pranab, one of the operators of the club. He added, “We even customise and design our exercises depending on the demand of the clients. Exercises are customised as per the need of our clients. The usual age group is 10-55 years.”
If you’re a voracious reader who would rather stay indoors, take heart. There’s a book club, even those dedicated to a specific author. Any girl or woman who has read Jane Austen would swear by finding a soulmate like Mr. Darcy. Who does not want to discuss, ponder, debate and strive to know, not only about their favourite characters, but all the themes that the author tried to touch upon. So, if you are a Jane Austen fan, the Delhi Jane Austen Group is all ears to hear your take on all of Austen’s novels, movies based on these and anything else to do with her.
Today, everybody and anybody who happen to own a pair of DSlRs call themselves photographers. But since 2008, the Delhi Heritage Photography Club (DHPC) has been trying to create awareness about monuments through photographs. We spoke to a member, Tauseef Ahmed, and he told us that the club is not just about clicking pictures and displaying them. “There is story-telling involved. We take a group to a heritage site and we do not encourage them to start taking photographs. We narrate the story of its construction, the history of the monument and then, if the people are interested, they are allowed to press the shutter,” said Ahmed.
The club also organises group discussions on various subjects of history on the first Saturday of every month at the India Habitat Centre. “The next discussion will be on whether the Black Taj actually existed,” added Ahmed, who let us now that they invite scholars and historians to speak on the topics and engage in a conversation.
“The more we know about our history, the more we would want to protect it. That is the aim of the club and of Vikramjit Singh Rooprai, who created DHPC,” said Ahmed.
We believe that if you look look around, you will find quite a handful of movie makers’ club in the Capital. But what would be your opinion of a filmmakers’ club where non-vegetarian food is a strict no-noIJ In fact, everything about the 300-member strong Vegetarian Filmmaker’s Station is like a regular film geek club except for the fact that they gorge on veggies during their meetings.
So, if you think you are too old or a bore to join any of the ‘social’ clubs, just head to any of the meetings of these weird yet quirky clubs. Who knows you might just bump into your old school friendIJ