He was Bunty, a 36-year-old autowallah from Punjab. Bunty said he had never been to school but spoke English better than any of us and could manage more than a smattering of French, Italian, Spanish and Russian.

“I learnt these languages while picking up tourists at the Red Fort. Besides plying my auto, I sell crafts and garments at Connaught Place, where most of my clients are Russian. I understand these people when they discuss the price,” he said.

Bunty is definitely more enterprising than most other autorickshaw drivers I have met in the city. His ‘Bunty Taxi’, the green-and-yellow auto, runs a special service for tourists. “Other tourist tours take you to Red Fort, to Old Fort, and if you are lucky, to the Qutab Minar, but I can take you on a much nicer ride through Delhi,” Bunty said.

As my Belgian friend Filip was visiting Delhi, I decided to treat him to a tour of the city and asked Bunty if he could pick us up at the Express Building. Filip, still recovering from his first day’s experiences with Delhi’s traffic, sportingly agreed to the tour. “Do you know the Grandfather of India,” Bunty asked Filip. Umm...we began but Bunty didn’t wait for us to answer. He chuckled as he turned on the ignition, revved up and set off to Gandhi Museum.

At the sandy parking near the red brick building, Bunty took us to a statue of the Mahatma. “This is of the Salt March,” he said. “Salt March?” We suddenly felt dreadfully ignorant about our host country but feigned a oh-that’s-interesting look. But Bunty had seen that before: “Since you don’t know much, you must enter this museum.” Bunty took us to his favourite painting of Gandhi and the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys. In another hall, Filip discovered pieces of yarn hand spun by Nehru, Patel, Babu Rajendra Prasad and Gandhi. “Read the captions,” Bunty said in a headmasterly tone. In one of the last halls we went to, we saw familiar faces. Filip and I finally thought we had a chance to be one up on Bunty. “Hey look, that’s Gandhi with Anne Frank,” I said. “Read the caption,” Bunty said again. Oops. That was Indira Gandhi, not Anne Frank.

From there, Bunty took us to Raj Ghat. He chose to stay behind in his auto as we took off our shoes and entered the memorial. The smells of Delhi’s traffic blended delicately with the scent of marigold.

Back in the auto, Bunty turned on his radio and we got lost in a Bollywood number till Bunty announced that we were at Red Fort. “The rear entry to the Red Fort is much nicer. Tourist buses do not come here but since you are special guests, I will show it to you. You don’t even have to pay the entrance fee here,” he said. The next stop was India Gate. Parking is too expensive, Bunty told us, and Filip and I set off on our own. “Indian helicopter, sir?” “Henna tattoo?” “Indian flags,” kids flocked around us. We knew we couldn’t stay here too long and got into Bunty’s auto, armed with our fleet of helicopters and jets.

Filip said he felt like some fresh beer. Bunty took us to a government liquor shop and we also packed