The Indian Underworld

The underworld – with its organized crimes, gangs, and syndicates – has long struck fear in the hearts of many. For years, they have terrorized the backstreets and wreaked havoc even in a major metropolis. Over the years, the tentacles of their influence have gone beyond the underground. They have penetrated every level of society, with the air pregnant with several conspiracy theories about their infiltration of different aspects of our life, such as the economy, politics, and trade. Their involvement and their presence are ubiquitous, from casual street gangs of major cities to the major organized drug cartels of Latin America to the infamous Mafia of Sicily, Italy which made its way into New York to the yakuza of Japan.

They are shrouded in mystery and yet, there is something about organized crime syndicates that continue to tickle the minds of many. The fascination with Mafia, yakuza, and organized crime in general rose along with the advent of Hollywood; it has been a long-standing urban legend that Hollywood is largely financed by hotshots from prominent organized crime families, particularly the Mafia. Hollywood is proliferated with films about the Mafia and street gangs. The yakuza is also a prominent subject in Oriental films. Meanwhile, literature further cultivated this fascination with these mysterious groups. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, a beloved literary classic, is one of the most popular novels portraying the Mafia. It has also been adapted into an equally successful film trilogy directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Capitalizing on this interest in organized crime is Indian writer Deepti Kapoor. Kapoor made a resounding debut back in 2015 with the publication of her novel A Bad Character. Nearly a decade later, she made her long-awaited literary comeback, Age of Vice. In her sophomore novel, Kapoor delved into the depths of the Indian underworld. Released earlier this year, Age of Vice immediately opened with a horrific crash scene. A Mercedes careened out of control on the streets of Delhi. Before meetings its inevitable end, the car plowed through a group of street sleepers, five of them perishing, including a pregnant woman who recently arrived in the city. In the tangled wreckage of what was once a luxury car, the lifeless body of a young woman was recovered. The driver, however, managed to survive the accident.

“The only thing he’s guilty of is ambition. Of rising above his station. Did my father cut corners on the way? Yes. This is India. The game is rigged, the rules are stacked, you people make the rules in the first place. You already have everything, and you don’t want to share. So sometimes things must be taken.”

~ Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice

A quick inspection showed the car was owned by a rich and prominent man but he was absent when his chauffeur wreaked havoc. Tests showed that the chauffeur was inebriated and reeked of whiskey. He was immediately arrested in relation to the accident. The pieces of evidence gathered were enough to put the driver in prison. During the driver’s incarceration, it was revealed that he was a Wadia man. Being tagged as one immediately set him apart from his fellow prisoners. The way he was treated by the authorities changed upon this revelation. But what does being a Wadia man mean in a country brimming with people? Most importantly, who or what is Wadia that the mere association with him or them elicits such favorable reactions and even strikes fear in the heart of the authorities?

To get to the point in the present, the story traveled back to the past as it introduced the 22-year-old man at the heart of the accident. His name is Ajay and was from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, or UP as the characters would refer to the most populous Indian state as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. He was born into abject poverty, with his parents working as scavengers. The trajectory of his life changed when their goat went loose and ate their neighbor’s spinach. In retaliation, Ajay’s father was beaten to death while his sister was forced into prostitution. Blaming Ajay for the death, perhaps murder of her husband and their subsequent misfortune, Ajay’s mother sold him into slavery when he was barely ten.

At first, he was the servant to a decent family who treated him well. They even educated him. But it was not meant to be. When he was a teenager, Ajay met Sunny at the cafe he was working in. Sunny, impressed by Ajay offered him a job in Delhi. Soon enough, Ajay found himself traveling to the city in search of Sunny; he was simply given an address and the name of a stranger for a password. Sunny, however, was no ordinary man. He was the scion of one of UP’s most prominent crime families, the Wadias. His father Bunty and Uncle Vicky were powerful figures with connections that infiltrated both corporate and government offices. They were also connected with one of the most powerful crime syndicates in UP, the Singhs.

Under the Wadia’s, Ajay became a faithful servant to Sunny. He cleaned up after Sunny’s wild nights. He was his chauffeur. He performed the most menial tasks, from fetching Sunny’s “warm lemon water with grated turmeric” and his fresh croissants to running his bath in the mornings after. Above all, it was Ajay’s primary task to protect Sunny. Sunny has become his master and he was subservient to his wishes and desires. In the disposal of his duty, Ajay learned to fight. Under the tutelage of Eli, a young man trained in the Israeli Defence Forces, Ajay learned the Israeli martial arts known as Krav Maga. Fighting became his second nature as he insouciantly snapped bones and slit throats. “Ajay is the beating heart of Sunny’s world. Wordless, faceless, content.“

“Don’t be so naive. The hospitals have no medicine. Why? It gets stolen, sold on the black market. To whom? Private hospitals? Who steals it? Who sells it? Who owns the private hospitals? You know who. There’s a pattern emerging. Everything public ends up stripped down, sold, taken away. But what is there in abundance? Liquor.”

~ Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice

A counterpoint to the violence that dominated the life of Ajay and Sunny came in the form of Neda Kapur. Young and beautiful, Neda descended from a family of intellects. She found contentment in her work as an investigative journalist working for a newspaper intent on implicating the Wadias in a host of crimes. She also had admirers but when she met Sunny, she fell in love. She found him magnetic. His life was a further attraction for her. After growing up “in the world of cultural elites”, Sunny was a deviation from the world she knew. Sunny represented modern India. A healthy portion of the novel was dedicated to the romance of the two characters. However, it was one of the weaker facets of the novel.

The romance, however, was one of the novel’s many layers. Age of Vice was, first and foremost, a crime novel and a thriller. Layers and layers of filth permeated the story. As the title suggested, vice is the currency of the story. Murder and violence were ubiquitous, most of which were senseless. All variations of rape and slavery were everywhere. The novel was rife with details of human and sex trafficking, torture, suicide, and domestic abuse. The lives of the ordinary were secondary. Drug and substance addiction were also present. Conflicts also abounded. Conflicts between fathers and sons were common. There were also conflicts between the poor and the rich, development and the status quo, and between lovers. With its plethora of dark elements, the novel is no easy read. Kapoor, with her unflinching gaze, did not spare the reader.

Saving graces are few and far between and one of them came in how Kapoor captured the continuously shifting landscape of India and its relation with organized crime. Kapoor walked the readers through the slums of urban Northern India and, at the same time, through the enclaves occupied by the rich. The caste system might have slowly lost its influence in modern society but it was replaced by the glaring dichotomy between two spectrums of the society: the rich and the poor. In moving to the city, Ajay learned of these disparities which were captured in eye-opening scenes. In one scene, he was not allowed to enter a mall because of the way he dressed. This prompted him to save for articles of clothing that projected dignity. Sure enough, he was allowed entrance into the mall without much of a second thought.

As India continues to wallow in these conditions, a new breed of visionary men and women are slowly stepping out of the shadow of their parents. They are idealistic and driven, hungry for what they think is real change. Among them was Sunny who was brimming with artistic and even moral aspirations. He wanted his fellow scions of organized crime families to unite and usher in real change. He wanted to transform the Delhi riverside and make it look like London. This, however, entailed the demolition of slums and communities that have long made these areas their own. He had the solutions. He had thought it through. However, life has shown that even the best-laid plans are not always realized.

“Money’s a fucking curse. It cuts out all the hard work. Before, you had to be kind or funny or fun. Interesting, intelligent. You had to take the time to know people. You had solidarity with them. Then you’re rich. It annihilates everything. Everyone is nice to you. Everyone wants you there. You’re the most popular person in the room. It’s so easy to be charming when you’re rich. Everyone laughs at your jokes, hangs on your word. You forget and think it’s about you.”

~ Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice

Transforming the Delhi riverside was just one of many grand ambitions Sunny and his ilk had in store. In this aspect, the novel developed into a scathing commentary on neoliberal capitalism. Contrary to what it promotes, it blatantly benefits the few at the expense of many. At the same time, Kapoor astutely underscored the challenges of ushering change and progress to developing countries. There are several obstacles. This facet of the novel gave it a different complexion. As much as it was a thriller, the novel was a timely examination of India’s current socio-political state. Police violence and political corruption were ever-present, exacerbating the growing chasm between the wealthy and the poor.

All throughout the story, this inequity in wealth – the squalor of the slums and the opulence of the stately mansions – was subtly underscored by Kapoor. The story of Ajay – to which Kapoor dedicated her most affectionate writing – further highlighted how the poor and the marginalized are exploited by people with power, money, and influence. The poor are forced into dire straits that force them to stick to the knife, to take risks in order to improve their station in life. This Kapoor managed to underscore while, at the same time, not tipping the scale against those who genuinely worked hard to achieve their dreams and goals in life. These are realities that persist in the present and have also been the subject of other prominent works such as Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize-winning-debut novel, The White Tiger.

Kapoor’s descriptive writing wove all of these elements together. It was the glue that held it together. She was a vivid quality – think Bollywood film – to her writing. Her astute observations, coupled with her journalistic background, converged for a lush tapestry of modern Delhi and, by extension, India. However, in her pursuit of painting a portrait of the Indian underground, Kapoor sacrificed her characters. Some of them were ciphers. Ajay was the most compelling character but his voice and development as a character was muted by the transition into the backstory of Sunny and Neda. Meanwhile, Sunny was his antithesis, all talk but, in the end, too idealistic for his own good. The tempo, at times, was upbeat but the shifting perspective can also be disorienting.

Without a doubt, Age of Vice is an ambitious undertaking. At the same time, it was built on a premise that has become familiar across the world; the enigma surrounding gangsters, after all, has tickled and continues to tickle the minds and imaginations of many. In her sophomore novel, Kapoor provided an all-encompassing tale that walks the readers to the dredges of India and to the heights of its ambitions through the stories of three characters; it was economical and yet it was a sprawling narrative. The novel was rife with dark elements such as murder, rape, trafficking, and violence. In Age of Vice, Kapoor went beyond these familiar elements. Her novel doubled as an incisive examination of India’s current socio-political atmosphere. She underscored the grim realities that continue to hound it while, at the same time, examining the very elements that make them persist. Kapoor does not skirt around these realities and while it was not flawless, Age of Vice was an intimate portrait of modern India.

“There’s nothing we could have done. There’s everything we could have done. We’re all guilty. We’re all the same. Even if you care, you can’t get away. Especially if you care. How can you sleep at night? You have to be a saint. You have to wear a hair shirt and beat yourself with birch, give up all your belongings, go barefoot, sleep on the street, just to atone, and that won’t be enough, it won’t change anything. Or you just have to go on.”

~ Deepti Kapoor, Age of Vice
Ratings

67%

Characters (30%) – 21%
Plot (30%) – 19%
Writing (25%) – 17%
Overall Impact (15%) – 10%

I have not heard of Deepti Kapoor until earlier this year when I was searching for books to include in my 2023 Books I Look Forward To List. Age of Vice was a common presence in similar lists. This prompted me to add it to my own. Thankfully, I was able to obtain a copy of the book, and six months into the year, I have finally ticked off one of the ten books on my own most anticipated lists. Gangster tales are indeed, very compelling read; I loved The Godfather. Age of Vice was an exhilarating read as well and Kapoor did not provide the readers any preamble; the story immediately delved into the Indian underworld. There were several layers to the novel, some of which are rather universal. There were also local flavors, such as India’s abject poverty. This was contrasted by its shifting landscape, thanks to idealistic young men like Sunny. It was a little predictable but it was still a riveting read. I wished there were more details to Ajay’s story. Oh, Age of Vice is the first book in a planned trilogy so I guess we will be reading more of Ajay in the coming installments.

Book Specs

Author: Deepti Kapoor
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Publishing Date: 2023
Number of Pages: 546
Genre: Thriller, Crime Fiction

Synopsis

New Delhi, 3 a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the curb, and in the blink of an eye, five people are dead. It’s a rich man’s car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Deftly shifting through time and perspective in contemporary India, Age of Vice is an epic, action-packed story propelled by the seductive wealth, startling corruption, and bloodthirsty violence of the Wadia family -loved by some, loathed by others, feared by all.

In the shadow of lavish estates, extravagant parties, predatory business deals, and calculated political influence, three lives become dangerously intertwined: Ajay is the watchful servant, born into poverty, who rises through the family’s ranks. Sunny is the playboy heir who dreams of outshining his father, whatever the cost. And Nedda is the curious journalist caught between morality and desire. Against a sweeping plot fueled by loss, pleasure, greed, yearning, violence, and revenge, will these characters’ connections become a path to escape, or a trigger of further destruction?

Equal parts crime thriller and family saga, transporting readers from the dusty villages of Uttar Pradesh to the urban energy of New Delhi, Age of Vice is an intoxicating novel of gangsters and lovers, false friendships, forbidden romance, and the consequences of corruption. It is binge-worthy entertainment at its literary best.

About the Author

Deepti Kapoor was born in 1980 in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India but grew up in Bombay, Bahrain, and Dehradun. She attended Welham Girls’ School, an all-girls boarding school in Dehradun. In 1997 she attended the University of Delhi to study journalism. She also obtained a master’s degree in social psychology. Post-university, Kapoor worked as a journalist for various newspapers and publications in Delhi for about a decade.

In 2015, Kapoor made her literary debut with the publication of A Bad Character. It was critically received by both readers and literary pundits alike. It was shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Médicis étranger in 2015. In 2023, she made her long-awaited literary comeback with her sophomore novel, Age of Vice.

Kapoor spent years living in Goa before moving back to Delhi. She is now currently residing in Portugal with her husband.