Click to play videoNew Delhi: Six years after his smash hit The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has found another secretive group to write about in his latest thriller The Lost Symbol - the Freemasons.
The Freemasons have been around for just under 300 years. From George Washington to Isaac Newton to Swami Vivekananda and Motilal Nehru to even Praful Patel here in India, their members read like a who's who of the rich and powerful and discreet.
And they are at the heart of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, though he's fairly sympathetic, saying the Freemasons are much maligned and misunderstood because of their secret rituals.
In his story, a man joins the Masons, to betray them, and unleash the forces of chaos.
CNN-IBN's Amrita Tripathi went to find out more about the secretive brotherhood in Janpath, the heart of the Capital, where their lodge is tucked away.
From the Grand Master of India - former chief justice, Devinder Gupta - to all the other masons, no one revealed their secret handshake to CNN-IBN.
But at the Masonic temple, people did agree to talk about some of the symbolism, which plays a big role in the book and in The Freemasons' folklore.
"The point of the symbolism is to use it in teaching men about freemasonry and make them better men," says the Grand Master.
What they discuss behind closed doors and of course the secret passwords they use to recognise each other are still a mystery though the masons are more open than before, reaching out to the public.
Of course it's that very backdrop of secrecy that has given Dan Brown some of the magic ingredients he needs to create a fairly well-crafted thriller, though it is a trifle long.
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