Wednesday 1st October 2008

The tuktuk tips us out sideways on to the street like a wheelbarrow. Sucked into the current of people streaming through the labyrinthine corridors of Chandni Chowk market, we have no choice but to be borne along with them.

Everywhere is the sound of taxi horns, babies crying, dosas sizzling, and people peddling belts, shavers, pens, saris, babies’ clothes, sandals, beads, bindis. The air smells of hot fat and spice and urine and frankincense: as soon as one smell leaves our nostrils another rises to take its place. The tiny streets are covered in a grey-blue hue. Yellow light bounces out of the shops from sari glitter, the flash of chapatti pans, and tinsel. We turn our heads quickly enough to catch a glance at five women sitting on the floor of a shop, huge bright taffetas spread below them, choosing a bridal trousseau. Another glance at dogs ailing in the gutters (“In India, they’re either pregnant, or they’re dying,” quips my friend Neilesh). We jump out the way just in time to avoid being pulled under the wheels of a rickshaw, only a few inches narrower than the lane it is trying to navigate, ploughing its cargo of three young women through the mucky splendour of the streets. Everything is profane, and everything is sacred.

And yet nothing is ominous: Indian markets are not like African bazaars, with their dried up heads and grimacing skulls. Neither are they full of the hanging slimy corpses of poultry and small mammals, or the ground up tusks of exotic creatures like those in China. Everything here glitters, shines, sparkles; smells of the past and of hopes pressed to the ears of the gods.

Chandni Chowk is a slum, filled with treasures in tiny ramshackle niches. There are businesses that have been here for decades, carving their quiet reputation as the bookseller who sells this item best, or the tailor who is superior for that. A shopper’s method in the carnage is known only to them. The entire bazaar has the sensibility of a department store – every five minutes of our walk the theme of the shops seamlessly changes; from shoes to saris to ribbons to paper to calendars to electronics. And all dotted with dosas and lime soda stands, like shop cafes less strategically placed. Of course there are no arrows to departments, and heaven help you if you stop for a moment to orientate yourself. There are people of all kinds: mothers, babies. Tall men, tiny men, old men, boys. Each have their own errand and I feel guilt at the indulgence of simply watching. Here is human life, everyone armed with their own purpose as they elbow their way through the throng.

Last Saturday, in one such market in Delhi, two black-clad motorcycle riders, as much part of the mêlée as any other, dropped a square package in the road. A young boy, one of the many sitting among the buckets and boxes, ran to pick it up and return it. It exploded in his face, killing him instantly, and injuring dozens of passers by. Such bombs have been planted around markets and open spaces in India over the last five months, with increasing intensity. Most have been claimed by Islamic Mujaheleen, who want the rights of Muslims to be asserted fairly in Congress. And they have succeeded in terrifying Indians as they go about their way of life. They have only highlighted the fact that in a country known for its gordion knot of bureaucracy, there is one of the lowest police to civilian ratios in the world. India is a country that thrived on chaos and chance happenings, that amazed Western visitors with its ability to run adequately without digital precision, safety first, and a mechanised mindset. Now its beautiful spontaneity is being threatened by a new brand of chaos. It cannot be discovered, contained, or understood. It is not ‘Indian Mind’ and no one understands how to make it stop. It leaves the Congress Party government with two choices: either turn into a surveillance state, or let another party do it instead.

From the mayhem of the street, the new Delhi Metro springs up, as if to guide us with its steely, sterilised hand to the safety of an underground passage. The metro system here is perhaps the best I’ve ever seen. Its enormous shiny caverns run trains that are on time, never overcrowded, cheap (10p or so a ride) and, best of all, narrated by a plummy Brit who must have modelled her received pronunciation on the Queen’s Speech. It’s a symbol of India’s emergence as a first-world democracy, and is due to be finished in time for the city’s hosting of 2010 Commonweath Games. The tiny plastic token, which scans each passenger through the gates on the way in, and slots them to their exit, is the ultimate ticketless ticket, and the metro’s three lines link New Delhi Railway Station and the main bus station with the rest of the city.

But there is another feature to the Delhi Metro that indicates the direction in which India is headed. Before even reaching the gates, passengers walk through airport-style security: metal detectors, and x-rays for bags. If a commuter is unfortnate enough to bleep on their way through the arch (and it’s telling that many of Delhi’s commuters do not carry enough on their person to be detected), they will be whisked behind a screen and frisked. What happens in the market - chaotic, mad, India – cannot be surveilled, but that is old India. Here in subterrania, the enclosed is carefully scrutinised.

Or will be, one day. The female officer who was allotted to me gestured behind a screen emblazoned with an advertisement for Delhi’s miaow FM. Cocking her head sideways, and giggling like the new shopgirl on bra-fitting day, she touched me barely close enough to detect a kalashnikov rammed up my tunic. Protocol, it seems, is just that.