How cocaine is ruining Delhi's after-party scene

Back in the day, in Delhi you could party till 6am. Today it's not the case. True, the odd nightclub, like BW, RSVP and Kitty Su, will still be open, but the crowd is largely sketchy.

Of course, with strict laws forcing the city's bars to down shutters by midnight, and the growing paucity of nightclubs, there is no proper weekend late night music scene to speak of. Instead, what the city has been witnessing for a while is the blossoming culture of the after-party.

While some of us unwittingly blame the Delhi government for enforcing such a rule as shutting bars and clubs early, no one accepts that these late night underground parties in the city have an ugly, seamy side to them.

Cocaine, for instance, flows freely. Wherever you see a thriving electronic music scene, you'll find chemical drugs being ingested. What's worse is that everyone from the music promoters to the club owners and the artists are all freely partaking.

Don't get me wrong. Not all music artists are junkies. A lot of them, particularly the experienced ones, are in it for the art as well as to make ends meet, but some of the recent upcoming artists, I find, are all hooked on to one drug or the other.

Being a regular in the after-party circuit in Delhi, I would like to share some of my personal experiences.

On weekdays I like to party in Delhi's Hauz Khas Village – the unofficial nightlife hub of the capital. If I want to party some more when the bars there shut, I usually end up on weekends at Gurgaon's iKandy, a nightclub in the Le Meridian Hotel.

HKV is home to more than 30 pubs, where new and upcoming DJs mostly play a mix of electro house, dub-step, techno and EDM. This is the "new music" Delhi is tripping on these days. If you want to hear the best of such music, you head to Kitty Su, the nightclub at the Lalit, but even at such high-end outlets, good and tasteful music is not always guaranteed. On most days, partying here though is an expensive proposition. Just to gain entry, you have to cough up Rs 1,500 or more. The price of booze, needless to say, is exorbitant.

So where does one go, if you're looking for a cheaper alternative? Pubs are out of the question as they stop operating after midnight.

To someone's house, which sometimes doubles up as an underground party. While house parties are private affairs, some of them are also open for a minimal entry fee.

I attended one in late April this year. It was held in a posh Delhi colony near Khan Market, we had to pay only Rs 200 to get in. We were told that the house is owned by an expat who happens to be a diplomat's daughter.

By the time I reached the destination with a group of friends, there was no one monitoring the entry and the liquor had run out. I wasn't worried. I was armed with a hipflask and I had a bottle of whiskey. Around 3am, even that ran out. The crowd I noticed was thinning on the dance floor and concentrating in a small room. When I walked towards them, I found people snorting coke. One girl pushed against me, and when I saw her face, I could see her nose bleeding.

About half hour later, more people arrived. While we were happy that they had brought along more liquor, we knew that they had also got more chemical substances with them. A friend offered me a pack of cigarettes. We smoked our lungs, not knowing till next morning that it had been laced with cocaine.

***

A week later, I attended another after-party. This was at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi. We were there to attend a music gig, which would be featuring DJs who were expected to be pumping out groovy electronic music. Everyone was told to bring their own alcohol. This was cool as it is a standard protocol for most parties these days. I know that night I didn't see people taking any drugs, but I knew they were definitely on something. You could tell by the way people were dancing, some drinking copious amounts of alcohol or sweating profusely.

At another weekend party, things were a lot different, however. This time around, it was at a friend's annual party, where a few DJs were performing. Many regulars from Delhi's party circuit could be spotted, including DJs, journalists, promoters, pub owners, among a host of others. 

The scene was enjoyable and most of us were drinking liquor, comfortably smug. Until towards the fag end when I noticed, to my utter dismay, that several people had gathered in a room next door, huddled up and snorting lines of cocaine.

Last weekend, I decided to host a party of my own. I had a few DJ friends playing. We wanted it to be all about music. I intended to have a small crowd of likeminded friends over. This was important to me because I live with my parents and I did not want to scandalise them. Around midnight, however, a few friends with friends of friends dropped by. They had been drinking at a club before. After a few hours, one of them asked if he could do some drugs. I politely turned him down. More time went by, and by about 4am, I had been asked several times if I could show them some leeway. It upset me a lot. So I asked them to leave if they wanted to go on snorting coke. They left, and it became clear that the music and ambience were hardly what they had come looking for.

It made me realise why nightclubs in the city are keen to shut down early. They don't want to deal with young people high on drugs in their premises. Cocaine, it seems, is flowing in the city. And the nighttime is perhaps the safest hour when one can go wild yet unnoticed.

Understandably, house parties are becoming safe havens to do drugs. Unfortunately, that's what after-party scenes have been reduced to. These parties are neither about the music, nor are they about hanging out with friends. My friends tell me that even as late as 3.30am, you can get hold of a bootlegger to buy liquor. But for a drug like cocaine, the peddler will be willing to home deliver it as well as offer other substances. 

It is sad how after-parties are no longer what they used to be. In fact, this is really the reason why late night party scene has fizzled away in the city. It is obvious that what taints these after-parties is really the crowd more than anything else.

Some musicians and promoters may argue that what's a music scene without its share of drugs scene. But what's happening in Delhi is beyond wrong.