While 9 to 5 belongs to work, 5 to 9 is all yours. Raveena joseph puts together a fun-filled list of alternate ideas to liven up your evenings.

You want to make new friends or hang out with old ones, but do something novel in both cases. You want to cultivate an interest or, maybe, expose yourself to fresh ideas, to discover a new one. Or, perhaps, you just want to embark on a new project.

While you were busy building all these fascinations, and looking for options to indulge them, there have been others from the city, creating avenues to do just that.

“If you want to change the city’s vibe, you have to do something about it,” says Vijay Anand, who, along with Divya Mohankumar, decided to bring PechaKucha Nights back to the city, after a four-year hiatus. Their initiative in reviving these informal evenings, which are conducted in over 800 cities around the world, is to bring together creative people who want to share interesting ideas and invite cross-collaborative inputs. The distinct style of presentation, devised in Tokyo, allows a presenter to explain an idea using 20 running slides at 20 seconds per slide. “It’s a succinct style of storytelling. People can present anything interesting they’d like to share — from their first experience with baking cookies to a complex product idea,” explains Vijay.

Another group that brings together people in pursuit of intellectual interests is book clubs. “Getting people involved depends mainly on the popularity of the meet-ups,” says Pankaj Korwar, organiser of the Book Buff Company. This group, which meets every alternate week, discusses authors, genres, reading experiences and more. The Goodreads Book Club, on the other hand, picks a book to read together every month, and the meet-up that follows involves discussions about the book. These gatherings, usually held in coffee shops, bring together lovers of the written word, usually in their early 20s to late 30s. Some members are writers looking for inputs on their novels-in-progress, and some others are avid readers, looking to increase their repertoire of books… whatever the reason, these meetings are avenues to find friends to read and write with.

Chennai is hardly the place one would associate with such creative pursuits and whimsical desires. Yet another gathering of smart people, who meet over alcohol, involves those who take part in the monthly Madras Pub Quiz. “As long as someone is of eligible age to come into a pub, we are happy to quiz them,” says one of the quizmasters, Berty Ashley. This, however, is not a hard-core stage for quizzing, but a fun way to spend an evening and win beer for being able to connect seemingly random ideas. The atmosphere is casual, and provides a chance to socialise with a young and trendy crowd, while learning some new trivia.

If fun, cerebral activities are your thing, then The Besant Nagar Board Games Group might also find you some friends. “Board games tend to be very competitive and the way people play reflects a lot about who they are. It’s a great way to meet people and find out if they are compatible with you,” says Vivekanand Kirubanandan, one of the organisers. The group gets together monthly to play strategy-driven games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne and Scotland Yard. “We also play chance-based games like Risk, and are waiting to play games like Pictionary and The Resistance, which need more players,” says Vivekanand.

“Five years ago, we just didn’t have the culture of socialising on a weekday evening,” says Munira Daniel, head of events at Ashvita Bistro. The bistro organises monthly game nights featuring games like Taboo, Pictionary and Charades, and one-third of those who attend these events, reveals Munira, do so by themselves, with the willingness to meet new people and share an evening with them. “Chennai, sometimes, is not very receptive to new concepts and we’ve struggled to promote some carefully curated shows, but not this one. People are open to spending a night laughing, playing and enjoying themselves amidst new company,” she says.

Chennai is changing, no doubt. And is increasingly discovering alternative ways to socialise and find friends. Like quizmaster Berty explains, “If you are with a group of people who are doing the same things as you, and finding it as much fun, then you automatically feel they are as cool as you are. That’s just herd mentality.”

Upcoming event nights