At eleven thirty in the morning I set off from my home at one end of New Delhi's Sunder Nagar. Feet dragging, heart thudding. I am headed towards a guesthouse at the other end of this posh, leafy colony, with its neat gardens and fortress-like boundary walls.
I walk along the back road which follows the rear wall of the Delhi Zoo feeling like the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary: Tribal warrior sets off on puberty quest. Except there are no tribal elders rooting for me, there is nothing noble or praiseworthy about my quest and I'm thirty-eight years old, way past puberty.
Nevertheless, here I am. Plodding along under the sun's burning eye.
At my destination, I climb the single flight of stairs to a neat self-contained company flat-let. I stand at the door looking for a bell. There isn't one. It's early in April and the furnace of Delhi's summer is just starting to stir. There's a film of moisture on my skin.