Two years ago, roughly, for a travel piece, I flew to Delhi and took a southbound train to a dusty railway platform in Rajasthan. There I was met by a smiling man with a gold earring who introduced himself as my driver for the week. His name was Babu. I must be a VIP, he said, because he was the company’s top driver and he always was given the VIP work. From now on, he said, he would be treating me as his god. Then he said, just to make sure, because there was no telling these days, and I didn’t by any stretch of the imagination look the part: ‘Excuse me, sir, but in your country are you VIP?’ I laughed and said certainly not. But he seemed to take my laugh and denial as a sign that perhaps I really might be a VIP. I was English, after all.
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