Coke Tales
The arrest and interrogation of a peddler in Delhi reveal that at glitzy parties in faraway farmhouses, money and power go on high with the kick of cocaine. It's the haute drug for the stylish people in black. A peep into the world of the cocaine-users.

Invisible Dialogue
Vajpayee has promised a solution by March next year. But who is he talking to? Nobody knows.

Gunning For Arun
Jaswant Singh's special adviser is again at the centre of a controversy. This one though is not of his own making.

New Metro Hotspots
Establishments combining a rash of activities have taken over from the one-dimensional discos in urban India.

COVER STORY: CRIME

Unfair Business

In Mumbai too, things have hotted up. The snort-savvy who prided themselves on deftly rolling up Rs 1,000 notes to allow "coke" to pervade their senses began to keep a low profile. The word was out like bushfire: swoops would follow from the Narcotics Control Bureau on filmstars and rich youngsters who regularly "do" the stuff.

Vadera's is a story that wouldn't do anyone proud. "My old mother would probably die of shock when she hears this," he told interrogators. He has been inside deaddiction centres across the world-London, Washington, Miami and recently at a hospital in south Delhi's Safdarjung Enclave. As he wouldn't kick the habit, his wife walked out on their marriage in 1992. Wearily, weepily and showing abundant signs of withdrawal, he began to tell the police that he had been introduced to the coke circuit by friends, all from reputed business families. Vadera is now in judicial custody and is likely to remain that way until the preliminary investigations are complete. His problem, unlike filmstar Fardeen Khan who is on a Rs 20,000 bail, is that 1 gm of the drug was allegedly found in his possession.

Ali's life has been less complicated. Even though he has been snorting for over a year anything between 5-6 gm a day by his own admission, he hasn't felt the need to go to rehab. Not for now, at least. Cocaine has pumped his heart harder, made his adrenaline flow more freely. It's helped him to befriend young and "available" women and spend hours making love to them with the same ease with which he would keep his esteemed customers on tenterhooks, chasing him from one rendezvous point (like Archana Arcade in Greater Kailash I or an ATM counter in South Extension) to the other. His conversations have been plain lurid; in a smattering of broken Hindi and some not-so-refined English he once he told a Defence Colony woman to leave the house as he would be "making out" with her daughters, adding that she could return the next morning to "get her fill" from him. All three are established coke-heads.

	THE HUNTERS
	THEY DID IT: Ali (sitting, left) before team led by Bhasin (centre, blue shirt); (below) ACP Singh

His other conversations have bordered on the arrogant; he's made his clients beg for just one more fix. On many occasions he would give away the odd half gram "free" so that he could use a friend's Mercedes or even get to spend a night with a dopehead's girlfriend. But never, would Ali be fair in business: for every one gram charged for, only 0.7 or 0.8 gm was supplied. By his own admission, only a quarter of the quantity would be pure cocaine, the rest a white, innocuous mix of glucose and sodium bicarbonate.

Apart from the little mixing he did to dupe his dopey friends, Ali was curiously involved in petty thefts, ranging from gold watches to loose cash. Yet despite this known weakness, the white gold he peddled gained him unlimited access inside peoples' bedrooms. He didn't hesitate to take liberties with women, and openly boasted of fondling a "respectable" fashion designer from south Delhi's Saket. Over the past year, Ali's peddling instincts gave him an elevated status in Delhi's elite circles. He replaced other known Indian and Afghan dealers due to his ability to deliver at odd hours. No longer did high society have to snoop around in shady park corners to deal with African junkies; the stuff was delivered at their homes, or in bars, as they desired.

In the end of the cocaine story, Ali has unwittingly roped in the big names of Delhi's chatterati. Some regular snorters know they could be in trouble. Others are plainly being cocky and pretending that Ali is from Mars. But time may be running out. As Singh says, "We will carry out investigations and clinical tests on those who come in our scanner to take this case to a logical conclusion." Adds Ashok Chand, DCP Special Cell, "Op Coke was launched to unearth the nexus between traffickers and high-profile users."

The words, as of now, seem ominous for the high society addicts. It remains to be seen whether they disappear like smoke rings, or lead to less "snowing" in happening places across the nation.

—with Sheela Raval and Supriya Bezbaruah

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Delhi Restaurant:
Kootub Restaurant

Delhi Dance Festival: Abhinaya Sudha

Delhi Restro-bar:
Buzz, Get It Here

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