29 June,2010 10:25 AM IST | | Prachi Sibal
Head to this brothel, but only to chat. A duo in the city has set up a brothel of a different kind.u00a0 Here's how they plan to stimulate your senses without having to take your clothes off
It started with a few all-night conversations and a Woody Allen short story called The Whore of Mensa that talks about a setup where skimpily clad women would provide men with intellectual stimulation by talking about subjects like poetry and a long-nurtured college association between the founders. What came out of this was a rather unique idea that was followed by a business plan. Hence La Bordello was born.
"Bordello means brothel in Spanish", says Sriram alias Agnibarathi, one of the founding members of La Bordello. Before your mind wanders to all activities southwards, this brothel is restricted to peddling intellectual conversations, where an anonymous conversation is offered as a package over a meal.
"We have held regular jobs, and always seen conversations as a source of intellectual pleasures. We wanted a platform, where a person could book a subject and be treated to a chat with someone who is an expert at conversation, not necessarily the topic and comes with a passion", says Agni. "We then turned it into a business model. We are here to sell experiences", he adds.
Tookers and teekers
Here's how the process works. "We let people book a conversation on our website, the person here can book a subject but will not be able to specify who the person in conversation should be or the sex. The said conversation can be booked over a meal, lunch or dinner at an Italian restaurant.
Once a request is made, we shortlist the person based on judging their intentions and passion, mainly by our own personal experience. We call the conversation expert a tooker and the one seeking conversation a teeker. The tooker and teeker then meet over a set Italian meal", says Ramanan alias Gollum, co-founder with Agni.
For now, there is a process of selection that limits both the number of teekers and the subjects. La Bordello also hosts events that are open to invitees only. We decided to attend one such torgy (talk orgy) on Woody Allen, interspersed with stills from his films. What it turned out to be on the contrary, was a film discussion that left neither space for conversation nor an appetite for the film, with all the spoilers.
Founders, Agni and Gollum, have bigger plans to come, where they intend to take this idea to bigger platforms and more cities and offer conversations online, and over cups of coffee within the city. For those, looking at paid, conversations without strings, here's a chance. As for intellectual stimulation, we suggest, unadulterated back-to-back Woody Allen films.
When we Teeked
We decided to give one of the said torgys a shot on a rainy evening. In search of engrossing conversation and out of sheer reverence for Woody Allen, we met up at a caf ufffd in the city. The rains and the location of the venue did its job in fending off most people who intended on being present that evening.
Woody Allen film clippings, technical hitches and a few disagreements on what clips to play is what followed. Bits of the talk included discussions on Woody Allen plots, recurring themes and the twist in his tales. To create conversations that are outside your bathroom you need more people than that. After a few unsuccessful attempts at a dialogue, we decided to play silent spectators.
Call: 89511 35507
For: Lunch or dinner conversation for Rs 1,000
Log on to: www.tooker.in
