Sub boys (or, Back to POL101)

There’s a relaxed vibe around Delhi in mid-October. It’s not so hot any more (midway from enamelling-kiln June to the Siberian misery of January, when it gets down to about ten degrees and people have to wear coats, poor lambs); but the sun is still quite strong so if you’re losing your hair you have to wear a hat and look like an, er, Englishman abroad. Otherwise you’ll end up with nasty growths on the top of your head like my grandad did, although he spent about fifteen years in India so it probably takes quite a while.

Anyway, the differences with Bombay are marked: it’s less crazy and full on than the Maximum City, but there’s a general air of on-the-take-ness. I probably use ten auto rickshaws in the time I’m there, and lo and behold not a single one has a working meter and you have to 'negotiate' the fare. Delhi (or at least New Delhi) is a much prettier city than Mumbai, but you have to check your change.

And there’s a big billboard advert that catches my eye, some manufacturer saying they’re “proud to have built India’s first nuclear submarine”. That would never really happen in Europe: you might do a furtive notice on page 12 of Realpolitik Monthly pointing out the fact, but it would all be rather sotto voce.

Nobody here seems to object to the government spending lakhs of crores of rupees on these big weapons for men with small penises, while hundreds of millions of Indians don’t have enough to eat. Of course it all comes down, as do most things, to our twin national obsessions, China and Pakistan.

In the small urban street of Asia, India’s got the overcrowded, chaotic but generally friendly house in the middle, but we’re always concerned about the noisy neighbours next door. They used to be part of the same family but they moved out a few years back, since when there’s been nothing but trouble, often caused by squabbles over the precise location of the garden fence. Our kids like playing their kids at the odd game of cricket, but they have to go up to the park to play because we’ve stopped their kids coming round, basically to annoy the parents.

But these days we’re actually more worried about keeping up with the Joneses over the road. In the old days we didn’t really know much that went on in their house, except that the dad seemed a bit of a disciplinarian. You used to hear some unpleasant noises coming from behind the curtains. Nowadays it’s a bit different: they seem to have come into money and they’re all looking very flash, and trying to buy the affections of the rest of the street with big parties, but their dad still occasionally shows off the big gun he bought years ago, just to remind people, just to keep them honest.

Now we’re not doing too bad ourselves, but we can’t let these guys walk around like they own the place, can we? Doesn’t look like we’re ever going to have quite as much money as them… but we could get ourselves one of those big guns, couldn’t we? Kids – you don’t mind not eating for a few days, do you? (And as a bonus, it would stop everyone questioning my manhood.)

In a few years’ time it’ll be one of those streets where everyone carries a gun. Which always means that everyone’s completely safe, doesn’t it? Marvellous.


I can feel a bad novel coming on…