2 weeks ago
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Let’s look it.
Barring 2 Chennai pubs that someway metamorphose into clubs connected Friday nights, determination are hardly immoderate dedicated spaces to spell retired dancing successful the city. “In those spaces too, playlists stay the same,” says Vardhan Athreya.
Tired of the monotonous clubbing country that offers small beyond acquainted faces and generic music, Wheeza Collective, co-founded by Vardhan and Kasim Marwaan, embarked connected a ngo successful 2024 to inject caller vigor and present a genuinely chiseled dependable into the city.
Their travel began with a elemental desire: to make a abstraction wherever Chennaiites could genuinely dance, connect, and acquisition a planetary tapestry of music, including their affluent Tamil heritage.
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The genesis of this question traces backmost to a late-night telephone betwixt friends. Vardhan, a DJ who had experienced London’s underground euphony scene, had precocious returned to Chennai aft assemblage successful 2024. Kasim was successful Canada, listening to mixes of Tamil songs by a diasporic assemblage from crossed the globe, taking pridefulness successful the euphony whose genesis laic successful the city.
They realised Chennai was missing a important element: curated nights and a assortment of genres. ”If it’s happening successful Canada and the UK and it’s getting much fashionable there, Chennai should besides beryllium the spot wherever we should beryllium doing these,” Kasim says. Their solution: to dilatory experimentation with antithetic genres, and bring the enactment here.
Their archetypal lawsuit was a private, invite-only location enactment for 80 radical successful a rented villa connected the ECR successful December 2024, says Vardhan. They meticulously curated the experience, transforming the villa into a club-like ambiance with cameras and bouncers, adjacent incorporating a “white party” theme. This intimate mounting allowed them to experimentation with their unsocial philharmonic blend, which included English, Tamil, and Hindi music, a stark opposition to the predominantly English playlists recovered successful astir Chennai clubs. This is too experiments with genres not constricted to EDM, House, and Afro beats.
The occurrence of their location enactment propelled them to expand. They consciously avoided accepted clubs to support their unsocial identity. “If everyone goes to the aforesaid club, however americium I gonna basal out?” Vardhan asked. Instead, they sought retired newer, unusual venues, transforming unexpected spaces similar Asvah, an Italian edifice connected the beach, into a popping nine for a night.
Their different themed events, specified arsenic a Moroccan rooftop sundowner astatine Koox successful September 2025, proved to beryllium hits too. These events were not conscionable astir the music; they were immersive experiences with elaborate decor, similar converting a spot into a jungle for a jungle-themed night. This worked successful their favour. The squad including Vedanth Raja, Nila Srinivas, and Tamaara Kurian, ended up realising that radical loved dressing up, adhering to themes, and gathering new, young inhabitants of the city.
Vardhan says that their doctrine extends beyond conscionable euphony and decor. While immoderate events mightiness cater to circumstantial property groups, their perfect clubbing nighttime is “a bully premix of everyone”. They recognise the value of some young radical connected the creation level and older patrons who “are buying the drinks”. This inclusive attack is besides reflected successful their ticketing policy. Unlike galore venues that connection escaped introduction to women, they judge successful adjacent access: “If it’s tickets, the girls person to bargain tickets arsenic overmuch arsenic the guys person to.”
The question is besides attracting talented DJs from extracurricular Chennai, similar Nida from Delhi, who volition beryllium performing connected May 16, playing creation euphony and House. They prioritise DJs who align with their imaginativeness of pushing caller sounds alternatively than conscionable large names. “We are much focussed connected the marque being the assemblage puller. Not the circumstantial DJ,” Vardhan explains.
Vardhan, Kasim and the squad are intent connected redefining Chennai’s taste landscape. How they privation to bash it: 1 bushed astatine a time.
