New Delhi gets a brand makover
A shot of the parliament house in the capital
Sebastian Wright, a junior attache in a European mission, and his Romanian wife Maria sip coffee and nibble at sandwiches at a cafe in south Delhi. The sun has long set, but they do not mind lingering for another hour.
"Security has never been an issue for the last two-and-a-half years that we have been here. We go out to parties that last till the wee hours of the morning. Our children go to school in the city," Wright (name changed) told IANS at the Barista cafe located in a shopping enclosure in South Extension-I.
Delhi unlike in the Seventies and the Eighties is no longer the "early-to-bed" staid capital city that discourage late night revelry. The entry of multinational coffee and bistro chains like the Barista, Costa Coffee, Cafe Coffee Day and Coffee Beans has made the metropolis a "night animal" - one which wakes up after sundown.
Add to it, the five star hotels, lounge bars, the handful of happening nightclubs, international diners' type restaurants and the 24X7 family McDonald's vends; they keep Delhi on its toes till the wee hours of morning.
A rough estimate cites that Delhi and the NCR region has nearly 250 coffee bars, tea bars, bistros, quick eating vends and midnight snack bars.