“...She was a jolly good shot, was the memsahib,” Colonel Raghuvir ‘call-me-Rags’ Singh had said over afternoon chai. “Never met anyone who was a better companion in a treetop machaan…you’d have long ago dozed off when a jab in the ribs would alert you to the arrival of Mr. Stripes.” Back in the hunting days of the fifties it was not unusual for a shikari (hunter) to spend weeks in the bush without getting a shot at a tiger. Entire platoons, armed courtesy of Messrs Martini Henry and Lee-Enfield, had scoured the country – helping to reduce the population from 40,000 at the turn of the century to 1,800 within 70 years. Mr. Stripes had to learn to maintain an extremely low profile if he was to survive at all.

The first thing I noticed about the horse was that she was completely jet-black. Black is considered a very risky colour in India - the colour of the goddess Kali, it denotes darkness, death and destruction. As I ran a nervous eye over Raat ki Rani’s fiery figure I wondered if Kali was sending a message here that I ought to heed. Raat ki Rani means ‘Queen of the Night’ but, more than a mere queen, this horse would once have been considered literally a divinity. As a Marwari warhorse her caste was traditionally higher even than that of the Rajput kings and, not so long ago, the sacrilege of my mounting her would have been followed immediately by a swift dose of Kali’s death-and-destruction.

Delhi is not a city that should be tackled in a rush; the city’s streets are among the world’s most congested and the real soul of Old Delhi only betrays itself to those who take time to entangle themselves in its web. It has been said that if you stand long enough on one of the busy corners in the exotic labyrinth of Chandni Chowk bazaar the entire world will eventually pass before your eyes.

I was hungry. But I wasn’t that hungry. My travelling companion, Tom, grinned and threw an oil-stained food package at me through the back window of the bus. I ripped away the wrapper and looked sceptically at the brown, deep-fried twists with flecks of green. My intense hunger, after a five-hour bus ride, battles a childhood tendency for travel sickness. Flies buzzed around the package. The accompanying bottle of water he tosses in my lap is tepid. I know if I get sick, a mouthful of lukewarm water would offer no respite.