When Socializing Became a Vocation in Bangalore

Courtesy of Flavy Shankar Deena Pinto, extreme left, with her friends during a Sunday brunch meeting in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Deena Pinto, in her 30s and single, is much sought after in some social circles in Bangalore. She is cheerful, spirited and always nattily dressed. She has built a wide network of contacts, mostly professionals who have recently relocated to Bangalore from other Indian cities, or from Europe or the United States. Nearly every weekend, Ms. Pinto receives calls from the city’s nightclubs, cocktail lounges and restaurants telling her, “Come over with your classy friends and we will pay you.”

For Ms. Pinto, it is a happy confluence of two trends. New restaurants and upscale brands getting launched nearly every week in the city are looking for customers. At the same time, a growing influx of expatriate and Indian professionals seeks friends and venues to hang out.

In a city brimming with new arrivals, extroverts like Ms. Pinto have created a new niche of a vocation that combines socializing and networking. Along with her peers Ema Trinidad and Viren Khanna, Ms. Pinto rakes in neat bucks by providing cozy, informal circles for the new and the uninitiated. It is a boon to recently-arrived single women as it takes the burden of being alone in a new city. Even in Bangalore, among India’s safest, venturing out alone in the evenings could be risky.

Sindhu George, 43, who returned to the metropolis two years ago after 18 years as a cabin crew counselor with a Hong Kong airline, is a regular at Ema Trinidad’s events. When she landed, however, the chatty, outgoing Ms. George did not know “a single soul” in the city she had grown up in. As a single woman, it was a challenge to find a social life. When she went out in the evenings, she was the target of unwelcome male attention. With Ms.Trinidad and her circle, Ms.George found safety in numbers.

Ms.Trinidad was herself an outsider, a Philippine national who moved to Bangalore to set up a spa. Just months after she arrived, Ms.Trinidad discovered that being single made socializing uncomfortable.

“I stayed home and desperately started missing good conversation,” she said. Out of boredom, she set up a group for “globally-minded” people where she emphasized quality conversations and leisurely dinners. Today, the group consists of not just expatriates like her but also Indians who have lived abroad and since returned.

Mr. Trinidad soon had restaurant owners and event managers chasing her to get access to her database of 700 people.

“I have quality people,” said Ms. Trinidad. “They are not just a list, they are my friends.”

Single women feel relaxed in her gatherings, she said. She calls herself a “networker who connects and helps people.”

As an entrepreneur who has started up in Bangalore, she has plenty of advice to offer. “Among new arrivals, I’m seen as the person who knows all the secret places and the right people,” she said.

On the other hand, Ms. Pinto, an Indian national who was born and raised in Dubai, worked for a Wall Street investment bank and is now with a social media startup in Bangalore. She yearned to go out in the evenings, but “as a woman out alone, I was targeted for the way I dressed up, who I talked to and what I drank.”

Courtesy of Flavy Shankar A Sunday brunch meeting organized by Deena Pinto in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Ms. Pinto started gathering people to hang out with. The group gave her a secure feeling and was fun too. The word spread and many new arrivals started getting in touch with Ms. Pinto asking “where do I go?” “what do I do?” and “who do I hang out with?” Her Bangalore Sunday Brunch Club has become a destination for new arrivals to gather to meet each other and forge friendships.

Some weekends ago, Ms. Pinto took a group of 25 Bangalore newbies to a newly-launched restaurant called YouCook. Guests chose from a raw buffet and then grilled mutton chops, marinated prawns and masala squid at their own tables. A couple of hours later, everybody at the party was getting along so well that they took over the singer’s console. The brunch ended at 5 p.m.

Viren Khanna, 28, a Delhi-born engineer, was employed at an IT multinational when he hankered after a social circle beyond his work buddies. It was extremely difficult to break into the “established school-college, family and club cliques” in Bangalore, he said. Mr. Khanna started collecting “outsiders” like himself to meet at different venues each weekend- nightclubs, launch parties and restaurants. The networking soon turned into a profession and Mr. Khanna quit his job. He hosts weekend parties and nets a profit on entry and bar charges. When he pulls together an “interesting bunch” of friends to storm a party or a launch event, he charges a neat sum of money.

Mr. Khanna sees himself a guardian of newcomers. He diligently screens those he invites. He is extra-protective of single women and is careful about whom he introduces them to. Pragya Shaw, 28, an engineer who works for an outsourcing company in Bangalore and is a regular at his weekend events, said, “In Viren’s parties, you can be sure that you will be looked after.”

Saritha Rai sometimes feels she is the only person living in Bangalore who was actually raised here. There’s never a dull moment in her mercurial metropolis. Reach her on Twitter @SarithaRai.