India Goes Raving Mad

Scores of outdoor rave parties are springing up around Delhi, the Times Of India reported this week, with techno and trance sound-tracking the increasingly popular events.

"Welcome to the new-age, psychedelic nirvana of the rave parties where almost nothing is taboo," The Times declared, adding, "naturally, raves are the playground of the rich and the famous. "

However, an unnamed local promoter at one of the estimated 100 events happening around South Delhi each weekend denied the new parties are elitist, insisting "it's not just models, fashion designers or members of rich industrialist families now.

Young corporate executives are also taking part in a big way."

The new phenomenon comes over a decade after western backpackers kicked off the psychedelic trance scene that later became synonymous with Goa (India's best known tourist destination) though the new wave appears to be driven by Indians.

"The crowd's predominantly locals, I'd say it's about 95% Indian," UK house DJ Eddie Lock told Skrufff after touring the country in November.

"The parties there are open air and the people seem to love them, they turn up on their bikes in the thousands. The sounds and lights are spectacular, they're proper stadium gigs with full-on sound systems," said Eddie.

Judge Jules also recently DJed to thousands of revellers at two Bacardi backed parties in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) and Delhi and was equally struck by the scale of the scene.

"India is a very divided society with an enormous middle class, and those were the kind of people who attended the parties, though it was a dressy rather than ravey crowd, with few Westerners present," Jules told Skrufff.

"And since coming back, I've had literally hundreds of emails from Indian dance music enthusiasts, which indicates the strength of the scene there."
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