IF you were in Calcutta in the sixties and appreciated jazz and pop music, fine floorshows and cabaret and the best in food and drink -- in fact everything associated with refined and sophisticated night life -- you could get it all on Park Street. Within a 250 metre stretch of this amazing thoroughfare there would be as many as 80-odd musicians, dancers, singers and other entertainers (magicians, ventriloquists, comedians) performing on a single evening in just over half-a-dozen places where dining out and entertainment went together.

There was great entertainment happening at other spots in the city as well but things were really cooking on Park Street. Trincas was the night club where Usha Uthup (then Iyer) made her debut, as did Biddu Appaya, who later became famous as producer of Carl Douglas's international hit Kung Fu Fighting. Marie Samson (now Wilson), of late being voted Australia's best jazz vocalist, also sang on Park Street.

VJ Luke Kenny's mother was a dancer, full of poise and grace; his grandfather was a fine drummer and an expert ventriloquist. A few blocks down the road at Blue Fox, The Louis Banks Brotherhood with Pam Crain and Braz Gonzalves was churning things up and at Moulin Rouge, one could hear the regal Delilah and at cabaret time there were can-can dancers to delight the diners.

Around the corner from Blue Fox was Mocambo, where Pam Crain made her debut, with its fancy glass dance floor with lights underneath, where the finest have entertained, and which, along with Trincas, was the place to be for teenagers on Sunday for four hours of non-stop dancing to pop groups playing all the latest pop material from The Beatles to the Monkees to Dave Clark Five. Some places featured drag acts, in which some beautiful young man clad as a woman would wait for the music to reach fever pitch before ripping off his bikini top, leaving the audience feeling short-changed. But there was nothing sleazy about all this and a general air of urbane good humouredness prevailed.

I was plunged into this milieu at the tender age of 16 when a bunch of friends who had a band needed a drummer. We were too young to get paid but Mr. Ellis Joshua of Trincas agreed to hire us and we brought rock music in the form of songs by Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Doors and others to Park Street for the first time, our versions a tad raw and amateurish at first but sheer youthful exuberance made up for all that. Suddenly we were rubbing shoulders with some of the best entertainers in the country; striking up friendships with like-minded musicians such as the Savages (later Savage Encounter) from Bombay, getting the feel of showbiz close up. It was heady stuff.

But if these were the places with the glitter of nightlife, there were almost as many places which were packed out night after night with clientele that just wanted to dine out. Eating out on Park Street, no frills attached, is almost as old as Park Street itself. Skyroom was so famous for Continental cuisine that people coming into Calcutta from as far afield as Manchester and New York made bookings in advance to make sure the didn't miss out on the experience. Mrs. Indira Gandhi frequently had their Prawn Cocktail flown out to Delhi, it was so good. And Skyroom did not even have a bar licence. It is ironic that having survived the most difficult years through the late seventies and eighties Skyroom closed in 1993 because of some internal problems.

There was and still is Waldorf, which, in the sixties, served first class Cantonese style Chinese food, a sublime experience in refinement and delicacy. Pieping restaurant also served very good Chinese food and although the glitterati generally preferred Waldorf, Pieping in its heyday was by no means far behind. Flury's, a "tea room", opened at 7 a.m. and served lavish breakfasts and at one time was the number one place for the best in Swiss confectionery.

Olympias was another institution in its own right, the favourite watering hole of the advertising world, also the regular haunt of many hardbitten journalists. Longtime customers even enjoyed credit here and although liquid sustenance and conviviality were the main attractions, they did excellent beef steaks and mixed grills. Kwality's, known for good Punjabi food, is also nearly half a century old and never had any band or other entertainment.

The lean years on Park Street were the result of a number of reasons, number one being the mass exodus of the Anglo-Indian community. They were easily the backbone of the entertainment business, both as performers and audience and with a large number of Goans also leaving, the decline was almost total. Added to this was political unrest, with people feeling insecure to be out late, and a huge power shortage also severely affected the running of air-conditioned establishments.

The remarkable thing is that every place mentioned so far (except Skyroom), has survived and in fact, over the last few years, there has been a definite upswing for the food industry in Calcutta and many places on Park Street are doing very well once again. Some new establishments have come up and even if one does not count the outlets at the Park Hotel which has done a major turnaround to become one of the group of "small luxury hotels of the world", there are over 20 places on Park Street today where people can go for a meal at outrageously reasonable prices, if you consider the air-conditioning, the ambience and the service. All within a quarter of a kilometre.

Only Trincas, and Someplace Else, the pub at The Park, have live music now; but if one were to choose one place that has retained its identity the most, where one can lunch out after a shopping spree at New Market, or take people out for dinner and feel almost the same as one did decades ago, where the old world charm still exists in the menu selection, the decor and the service, it would have to be Mocambo, easily the number one choice on Park Street for typically Calcuttan Continental food, from the Chicken a la Kiev and Chateaubriand Beef steak to the Grilled Hilsa and the Baked Alaska.

Peter Cat is another restaurant under the same management, right across the road. This place is also doing well and while it has a small Continental selection, is more known for its tandoori food. It was here that the chelo kabab, an Irani item, was introduced to Calcuttans. This is a meal in itself; mutton kababs are served with rice, butter and fried egg which is supposed to be mashed into the rice. If one were to have this dish in Teheran, the egg would be raw.

For Chinese food, for which Calcutta was once considered the Capital city, and if you know where to go and what to order you can still get the best, as far as Park Street is concerned, Bar-B-Q is at present the most popular place. Even on weekdays there are people waiting to find a table. They do some tasty starters and good soups especially the seafood soup and the sab kam wanton soup.

Main course dishes that are recommendable are pork with mushroom and vegetables, chicken with cashewnuts and Mandarin fish. They also do what is a Calcutta trademark American chopsuey complete with fried egg on top. Bar-B-Q has quite a history too it started in the sixties as an exclusively Continental place where you could get baked abalone and other exotica and now it is a Chinese eatery, with an Indian option.

Magnolia's was set up during World War II by an American Lady, Claire Ross. It was Park Street's first soda fountain and was the ideal hangout for American and British soldiers. Ice cream, sode pop, milk shakes and sundaes were the order of the day; later Mags became Park Street's only place with exclusively Bollywood entertainment; my friend Dinesh Pandit, percussionist extraordinaire, used to play here and later joined Osibisa, the famous Afro band. Between 1994 and 1999 Mags was closed but reopened last year with a French and Indian menu.

Blue Fox and Moulin Rouge have re-invented themselves as just restaurants and are doing fine, the former having introduced Thai food as well. Pieping had a face lift in its sixth decade and is Park Street's longest survivor. Flariana and Copper Handi are new establishments, the former a multi-cuisine place (Indian, Chinese, Continental), the latter serving Mughlai fare. Olympia's thrives and if you are ready to pay five-star prices, the outlets at the Park make for some very fine dining experiences, my favourite being Zen, their Oriental restaurant. The buffet at the coffee shop is also usually very good. Saffron, the Indian restaurant is interesting as it serves food from the North, South, East and West of India.