Vignette: Off to the Club

It was 1:45 p.m. on a warm Delhi afternoon. I was waiting again for Raj to come and meet me at Lajpat Nagar metro station. He was 30 minutes late, but by then I was used to waiting for my informants for long stretches. I suddenly got a call from him, so I picked up the phone but there was no answer, just music in the background. Then his voice shouted out, ‘Yes brother (bhai) where are you?’ I replied by telling him that I was standing by the metro exit as we decided. I asked him which exit he was at but he replied, ‘No brother, I’m on the road, come towards the front.’ To which I was confused and asked him what he meant. He was very cryptic and said in a loud instructive tone, ‘Yeah, come to the front.’ I did not understand what he meant but I followed his instructions and walked towards a parked car.

I looked through the tinted window and saw Raj sitting on the driver's seat, gesturing me in. He was not smiling but had a friendly look on his face nonetheless. I opened the car door and a refreshing burst of chilled air rushed out. As I got in, I stretched my hand out towards Raj and said, ‘Hi brother, amazing car’ with a big smile. He looked pleased at the comment but did not smile back. With a tone of warmth, he then asked me, ‘And brother, how are you?’ I replied that all was fine with me, but Raj had stopped listening. He was concentrating on the road as we began to merge into traffic. I noticed that Raj was more dressed up than in our previous meetings. Today he was in a black full-sleeved shirt, with a white psychedelic print on the front. I was glad that I too wore a relatively nice shirt.

Inside the car, the atmosphere was very different from the outside. The car was cool with the air conditioner working on full power; I could smell the car perfume, and music poured out of the speakers on the doors. Looking at a hot Delhi afternoon zoom by from the darkened windows created a sense of privacy and excitement as we drove through traffic, noise and pollution.