E-Paper
Look who’s passing out
Top clubs in the city are happy to serve liquor at ‘conti’ or farewell parties thrown by school students.
Students graduating from Delhi’s schools are taking the ‘parting shot’, quite literally. In a shift from the traditional school leaving celebrations, farewell parties in the city are now being held at popular pubs and restaurants, complete with hard drinks. In a bid to tap the trend, the clubs in the city are showing total disregard for the legal drinking age.
An HT City reporter, posing as a school student, called up prominent pubs and lounges in posh South Delhi to ask if they were willing to hold a ‘conti’ party — informal ‘continuation’ parties held after the school farewell — for hundred 17-year-olds and serve liquor, nine out of the 12 pubs readily agreed. Some even suggested special packages!
Only three out of the dozen bars we contacted, refused to entertain underage drinking. Interestingly, the rest, too, took a U-turn when we called them again — this time, officially— and asked whether they would serve liquor to school students. “We host conti parties, but we don't serve hard drinks to underage students. Only soft drinks,” said the manager of the bar in Saket. “We don't allow people below 25, so the party cannot take place,” claimed a popular discotheque in Vasant Vihar.
Schools are doing all they can, to keep discipline intact, but find the practice tough to curb . “We send notes to parents so that they know of the farewell happening in school. But if students do something outside school and it escapes our notice, we are helpless," says Usha Ram, principal, Laxman Public school. A student of a school in South Delhi says, “We were going to have our conti party in a five-star in Connaught Place. But the school authorities got to know and warned the hotel, so, now, we have shifted it to a South Delhi pub.” She adds, “We have kept two categories of invites for our party. The regular, for Rs 2, 000 and the VIP, for Rs 3000. Booze is a part of both, but the VIP one has karaoke and hookah, too. Students of other schools can come too, but it’ll cost more."
Experts cite ‘keenness to experiment’ as a reason behind the practice. “12th graders want the thrill of entering adulthood, without realising the repercussions” says Dr Jitendra Nagpal, psychiatrist.
