City of Djinns. William Dalrymple

       FOUR

      MY FIRST ACTION on returning from Karachi was to retrieve from the Delhi Customs Shed my computer, printer, ghetto blaster and precious electric kettle. How they got there is a long and harrowing story.

      Five days before, I had arrived at Delhi International Airport in good time for the Karachi flight. Getting thus far had taken a week of hard work, for in Delhi the simple matter of leaving the country can turn into some sort of mediaeval penitential exercise. For four days I spent my waking hours pacing the corridors of Hans Bhavan, headquarters of the Immigration Authorities, in the quest for exit permits; waited patiently in a queue outside the Pakistani Embassy Visa Section in search of an entry permit; then underwent five long, dull hours sitting in the Air India office while their ticketing computer lay disembowelled on the desk, undergoing emergency surgery at the hands of a computer ‘expert’.

      As I strode through Immigration on the way to Customs, I congratulated myself on having got everything achieved: I had a boarding pass and a seat number; the tickets were in my hand; the appropriate stamps were in my passport. Proudly I handed it to the customs officer:

      OFFICER (leafing through passport) Good day, sahib. I am thinking you are new in our India.

      WD Yes. I’ve just moved here.

      OFFICER But now you are planning to leave?

      WD (cheerily) That’s right. Not for long though!

      OFFICER (suddenly severe) When you arrived in our India, I am thinking you brought in one computer, one printer, one piece cassette recorder and one Swan electric kettle.

      WD That’s very clever of you. Oh, I see! (The truth dawns) Your colleagues wrote them in the back of my passport when I arrived.

      OFFICER Sahib, I do not understand. You are planning to leave our India but I am not seeing one computer, one printer (reads out list from passport).

      WD (nervous now) No—but I’m not going for long. I won’t be needing the kettle. I’m going to be staying in a hotel. Ha! Ha!

      OFFICER Ha! Ha! But sahib. You cannot leave India without your computer and other assorted import items.

      WD Why not?

      OFFICER This is regulation.

      WD But this is absurd.

      OFFICER (wobbling head) Yes, sahib. This is regulation.

      WD But I’m only going for five days.

      OFFICER This has no relevance, sahib. One day, one year it is same thing only.

      WD (losing cool) Do you understand? I AM ONLY GOING AWAY FOR FIVE DAYS. My things are all at home. Of course I won’t bring my bloody kettle with me when I go away for a short trip. Any more than bring my fridge, my pots and pans or my air conditioning unit.

      OFFICER Sahib—you are having imported air conditioning unit?

      WD (backtracking fast) No, no. It was just a figure of speech …

      OFFICER Sahib. Point is this. Maybe you have broken number one tip-top most important regulation and have sold your kettle or one piece cassette recorder.

      WD (desperate) I promise you I haven’t sold anything. They are all in my flat. Please, I just want to go to Karachi.

      OFFICER Sahib. I cannot see your items. So I cannot let you go.

      It took twenty minutes of wrangling, pleading, cajoling and threats before we patched up a compromise. I would rush home and bring my ‘assorted items’ to the airport. I would show them to the officer. He would hold them as surety for my return. When I got back they would be returned.

      On my return from Karachi the officer, Mr Prakash Jat, was true to his word. He was waiting for me, items safely secreted in his customs pound. I handed over the receipt.

      ‘You are lucky man,’ said Mr Jat. ‘We are breaking all regulations letting you out of India without your items.’ Then he added: ‘By the way, much am I liking your [reads from label] Discoblast Cassette Recorder with Anti-Woof and Flutter Function.’

      Mr Jat gave my cassette recorder a loving caress, held it in his hands and admired its sleek lines and sturdy build. Then, casting a shady look on either side, he added in a lowered voice: ‘Sahib, you are wanting to sell? I give you good price.’

      Outside, I was both pleased and surprised to see Balvinder Singh waiting for me. I say surprised because during the weeks prior to my departure, Balvinder had been playing truant. It had all begun in the middle of October when Balvinder was thrown out of his house by his wife and he had been forced to take refuge with the whores on G.B. Road. My friend feigned a lack of interest in his domestic drama—‘No problem, Mr William. Paying forty-fifty rupees, spending whole night. Too much fun, everyone too much happy’—but despite this bravado, as the month progressed Balvinder Singh began to show distinct signs of wear and tear. Absent from International Backside most of the morning, he would appear still unshaven in the early afternoon. No longer would he point out pretty girls in the street with a cheerful ‘You like, Mr William?’ More ominously, he began to discharge himself from duty promptly at five-thirty and head off at some speed towards the Khan Market Beer Shop.

      Balvinder’s preferred tipple had always been a strong local brand called German Beer, whose large litre bottles were distinguished by the enormous swastika which decorated their labels. Balvinder had always been apt to down a litre or two of German Beer an evening, but through October his intake rose dramatically. Over the month empty beer bottles piled up in the taxi, so that every time we turned a corner a monumental crash of broken glass would be heard in the boot.

      ‘I am having some breakable items in my dickie,’ Balvinder would explain, a touch shamefaced.

      Whether it was his spending on German Beer or Rajasthani whores that landed him in debt, one day towards the end of October Balvinder confronted me and asked whether he could borrow one thousand rupees. His creditors were after him, he said. A month earlier he had borrowed money from a friend, a local gunda; now the gunda was threatening to perform some impromptu surgery unless he could pay up. It all sounded a bit of a tall story, but I lent Balvinder the money. The next day he disappeared to the Punjab.

      Now, a month later, the upsets seemed forgotten and he cheerily handed back all the money he owed. When I asked my friend about his gunda and his debts he just shrugged.

      ‘Big man, big problem,’ he said. ‘Small man, small problem.’

      ‘What do you mean, Balvinder?’

      ‘Rajiv Gandhi has big problem, Balvinder Singh has small problem.’

      What he actually meant, I later discovered, was that his father, Punjab Singh, had bailed him out of trouble in exchange for a promise of future good behaviour. It lasted about a fortnight. In the meantime, for the first couple of weeks of November, Olivia and I enjoyed the new-leaf, clean-shaven, fresh-smelling Balvinder and the novel sensation of riding in a taxi