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I had never entered any drinking establishment that was the territory of so many rats. I had certainly drunk with people who smelled a bit like them, and some who scuttled rodent-like from bar to bar. But this was different.

A descent into the gloom and the first rat I spied was skirting the far wall on a cable. The room was a boxy dungeon of discarded bottles and half-eaten boxes – the detritus of a thousand drinking nights. Nowhere was the surface of the floor visible for more than a few square inches. Coupled with the unmistakable smell of decay, it felt as if I was entering a crypt.

But it was a bar of sorts – more of a shop with an attached drinking area. The bottle store above was open to the elements but if you wanted to drink on the premises you had to go subterranean.  There are hundreds of such places in every Indian city and they are almost exclusively the preserve of working-class Indian males: no women are allowed. They tend to range from the unspeakably grim to the ‘I could just about stomach a swift half here’ type. This place fell squarely into the first category.

Any human here had clearly shunned the surface, thirsty enough to spend time in the company of these reviled creatures. They were barely visible, and only by the faint rustlings of crisp packets and clink of bottles could you guess their whereabouts. Although only five metres below the shop and with the door open the gloom seemed to muffle the street noises above. It was a dead-looking space, like a crime scene from Seven.

There were two other figures in the room. The man closest to the stairs, wearing a knock-off Ralph-Lauren polo, beckoned me to sit at the stool next to him, as if inviting an old friend to his favourite perch at the village local. He had the slicked back hair and easy smile typical of all Indian traders who rely on tourists for their dollar. His bright, white teeth and even brighter shirt made him spectacularly incongruous with his surroundings.

‘Have you been here before?’ I asked, in the way a diner might fill the silence while browsing the menu. I laughed at the absurdity of it.

‘Yes, after work sometimes, to relax,’ he said.

‘Is there a snack menu?’ I didn’t say in reply.

I was more than eager to talk. I wanted the silence to be filled with something other than the endless shifting of the rats.

He worked in a shop selling textiles in the fort, and we spoke about desert safaris and the rising cost of rent in the older parts of the city. He was confident and urbane, spoke good English and of course I wanted to ask him why he was here but didn’t, or couldn’t.  

‘After ten this place gets full of rats,’ he said knowingly.

‘Isn’t it already full of rats?’ I said.

‘Oh no, many more will be coming.’

He took no notice whatsoever of our animal friends. A large rat moved near my shoe, and I remembered the film The Bone Collector, and how it had terrified me as a child. I tried to keep my eyes away from the floor. I had 10 minutes until my night bus.

Eyes averted from the animals I had the chance, or misfortune, to observe the other guest present at our exclusive soiree. In the half-lit other side of the room, and on the other side of the world, sat one of the saddest sights I had ever seen.

Here was a man of at least fifty, small, with a faint moustache. Sat on an empty crate, droopy-shouldered and beyond hope, he looked incapable of speech. He stared into nothingness, limp and lifeless. Clutching a super-strength Kingfisher in his left hand and his head slumped over his chest, liquid stains ran down his chin onto his shirt and his eyes were moist with tears.

His sunken eyes were ringed by an absurd powdery blue makeup of the kind a clown might wear, and it made him look like some destitute theatrical performer; a jaded clown in his dressing room full of vermin. I looked over at him continually, fascinated by his presence; his eyes for a moment held my own until I looked away in shame. I could not stare into this man’s eyes for longer than a moment. These eyes which said clearer than any words I am nothing, I have nothing. Surely no one had ever looked this desolate and broken in such a desolate and broken place.

He was the discarded verse in The Piano Man too depressing to include in the song.

I felt mildly sick and voyeuristic looking at him, like I was watching a slow death.

Humans weren’t born like this I thought.

The trader drank heartily. Not once in our conversation did he so much as glance at the man opposite us. We three had all been drawn here for different reasons. I because I wanted a drink before a long night bus and it was the nearest joint. The trader for his post-work pint. Some awful event had brought our companion here. A sudden family tragedy perhaps, or a life of constant and enervating disappointments. The tears and the beer leaking from his mouth were like the life force leaving him forever. Maybe in the morning he would be dry and hollowed out, like a husk of a coconut.

Perhaps there was a whole host of other characters who called this place their local. Maybe this was a quiet night, and there were good old shindigs here on Saturdays. Or perhaps this place remained empty most of the time, the rats holding sway in the devilish darkness and the door closed to all light and hope.  

I couldn’t stand it. I needed to leave.    

As I climbed the basement stairs the sounds of the rats faded and I sniffed the freshness of the air, like coming out of a bad dream: the familiar sounds of Indian traffic, the beepings and  the revvings, pulling me up.

‘See you next time when you come!’ the trader called after me.

‘Yes. Maybe,’ I said feebly. I didn’t have the nerve to turn and look back.

Later, as the bus took me east away from the desert, I dreamt I was walking along a shore under a grey sky, and on the horizon writhed a mass of rodents, like mighty ships massed for assault.