In its approximately 30-year history, the decrepit Hotel Samrat in the heart of Delhi’s Chanakyapuri has attempted coolness just once, by launching a nightclub Decibel which faded off before you could check it out. But just maybe, they’ve got the cool quotient right with the week-old Lap, the club famously promoted by actor Arjun Rampal in partnership with restaurateur AD Singh. Once you’ve overcome the musty odours of damp carpets peculiar only to ITDC hotels, a pitch dark staircase leads down to Lap.

The executive at the entrance peers over an invitation list and if your name isn’t on it, you can shell out Rs 1,000 to enter a jam packed, militantly garish space, with golden couches set around a heavy, glittering chandelier. The pulsating Buddha Bar remixes are supervised by the Adonis himself, Rampal, who looked every bit the rocker in a tight black T-shirt and cargo pants (It’s unfathomable how he could see what he was mixing behind those jazzy dark glasses). Irrespective, his music or him created a frenzy of sorts, and an assortment of long-legged blonde beauties descended out of nowhere onto the dance floor.

Lap is unapologetically vulgar; behind two brightly lit, glass-partitioned screens on either side of the DJ console, a deadly man with an even deadlier bare-chested body, performed some moves with a Nunchaku, while in the other, a girl in an impossibly tiny skirt with glasses hung out reading a book. At some point, a foreign belly dancer and a kathak performer floated into the area. The men’s room stocks a bucketful of condoms and sweets, for free, of course. For those who actually want to talk or smoke, you can exit into the lawns at the other end of the bar. Though food doesn’t seem to be a big priority in this crowd, the menu boasts of a foie gras burger and a mean biryani that they serve as late as 6 am.

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