Kishore Singh: No so elevating after all

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His friends wanted him to take them out on his birthday, our son said, so he hoped it was alright with us. It was, but what did he mean by out, his mother wanted to know.

"Somewhere," he replied vaguely, "out." "You can go to the club," I pointed out helpfully, but my son told me politely not to get on his case, he'd think of someplace on his own.

It transpired the group wanted to go to Elevate, one of the city's hippest night spots where a lot of designers hang about, and which has uniformly great music. That settled, we weren't bothered about the nitty-gritties so, alas, it came as a rude shock that a visiting DJ that night had caused entry prices to soar stratospherically. For that kind of cover charge he could party out every night for a week, so even though it was the last moment, we spiked his plan for the night.

"We'll go to Aura instead," he said, hair all gelled and spiked for the evening ahead. "But that's a bar," I protested, "I can't give you permission to spend your birthday evening in a bar." "It isn't strictly a bar," my son insisted, "it's a lounge and we're going to dance." "Wrong place," I said, "no go, son, try something else."

A quick conference with his friends later, they decided that Aqua might be a better bet. I called the manager at Aqua to make a booking, but was told he wouldn't allow anyone who was underage. I told him they were all underage.

The evening was ticking on, several places were proposed by me and rejected by my son. He asked about a few other watering holes, I said no, and all the while his friends waited about "" some at our home, others already at Aura, and still others on the road. At a half-hour to midnight, because he said he already had friends who were at Aura, I allowed him to drive off there "strictly for the music".

The cavalcade of cars arrived at the hotel porch, but the manager wouldn't let them in because, he said, it was against their policy to permit entry to single, young men.

"But we have lady friends inside," pointed out our son's friends "" which was true, but to no avail because, according to the manager, that didn't count. "You could go to the coffee shop," I said helpfully when my son called to remonstrate, but the 24x7 diner was a poor option for men about town.

Instead, they decided to hit the roads again and try their luck at Aqua. To conceal their ages, they practiced menacing looks and adopted swaggers, but not only did the manager see through them, he was pretty accurate at guessing their identity too.

"Three of them might have passed muster," he called to say, "but the others are all kids." Right, I said, grateful that others were watching out for the bunch of kids. There was a coffee shop there too, I pointed out, that they might like...

They thought otherwise, and with all other places closed (or closing) for the night, my son drove a couple of his friends to their homes in different parts of the city before returning.

"Happy birthday, son," I said to him when he got back "" having decided to stay up as a treat "" "did you have a nice evening?" Which was clearly the wrong thing to ask someone who had spent the better part of it on Delhi's roads, or in being turned out from various places. "At least," I tried reconciliation, "you spent it with your friends." "Correction, dad," said my son bitterly, "I spent it getting laughed at by my friends."