It's November 2 and I've got about $15 and an Uber account to my name.
I dropped a lot more cash on a climbing membership earlier today at BoulderBox, where I met another 25-year-old who flies an Airbus from Delhi to Chennai twice a week. (According to Ranveer, piloting is matter of flicking a few nobs and sitting back and enjoying an in-flight meal.)
The cold night air keeps the smog dense and close to the ground. You feel it hot in your lungs and prickly in your eyes. The evening market has lurched awake, its collection of sounds and aromas beckoning me out of my flat.
I'm attempting to try another ATM and grab beer for another ex-pat party late tonight. So I dawn my face mask, fly down the four flights of stairs, and leapfrog through the unstoppable traffic, nearly clipped on the other side by a wayward rickshaw.
The ATM is a bust, and, although cashless, I'm determined to procure the beer and feel a small win after a long Delhi day.
I wander down a little alleyway lined with sizzling food stands and draping Diwali lights, following my maps.me directions to an unnamed liquor store.
I unmistakably find it -- at the very end of the lane is a small shack and a street-facing counter, and in font, thirty men pressed together in a dense clump.
It's truly a sight -- men of many ages grabbing, pushing, squirming towards the counter -- a wild pit of thirsty roughness.
Maybe the right thing to do at that point was just cut my losses and head on home, try again tomorrow.
But when in Delhi, right?
I throw my phone and wallet into my bag, sling it over my front, and rush in.
It was thrilling! In the center, a chaotic crush of hands, elbows, and faces; small wads of rupees tossed from finger to finger, up-river to the counter. Cash is exchanged for dark bottles of rum and clear glasses of gin, then sent downstream to the thirsty throng.
I come to see there is fine tune and a rhythm to this organism, but I can't quite figure out where to come in. But a good soul notices me and my bewilderment -- he flips his hand in the air and shouts in broken English,
"What you want!?"
"Two Kingfisher!", I shout back, as I toss him 200 rupees.
Like a warrior, my friend battles to the front of the mob and disappears in the bodies. After a few minutes he returns, holding two bottles of beer and some rum for himself. He hands me my drinks, a little change, and we walk out together heads held high.
Crush, goodwill, and little wins in Delhi.
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