Another train journey took me to Kanpur but the experience wasn’t great. Cockroaches on the train – I’m past caring what I look like and if people saw me feverishly trying to unsuccessfully eliminate them and generally behaving like Basil Fawlty, so be it – but I felt a twinge of relief when I looked down from my top berth and saw a mouse/rat scurrying past. Arrival in Kanpur was greeted by loads of touts who didn’t want to understand that I had the hotel car picking me up. When it didn’t come, I had to slightly sheepishly hire one of the touts to take me to the hotel which, well, had seen better days. More cockroaches abounded. I didn’t have much time to see Kanpur but it didn’t strike me as a place I will probably return to although I had an excellent meal in the central and probably best hotel in the area, The Landmark.

I have always prided myself in being able to cross busy Indian roads safely but Kanpur saw me hit. Twice. In one afternoon. A motorbike bearing family pretty much torpedoed me and we both did well to remain reasonably upright and dignity intact but later I went behind a car which promptly reversed back into me! It was nothing unduly alarming but my self-esteem took more of a battering than I did.

The second Indian Grand Prix was my reason for going. Rajesh had been invited – and thus got me in too – to watch Australian Mark Webber play Gautam Gambhir at cricket but, unfortunately, we realised too late that Noida University Campus is not in Noida but in Greater Noida and about 30-40 miles from where we were at the time so, sadly, we had no chance of making it. Webber is one of my favourites and it would have been fun.

Rajesh’s daughter, Anshu, had very kindly made painstaking plans to get me a ticket through one of her friends who is a sponsor. I have to say that, when I heard that the ticket would possibly have to be collected on race day from a politician’s son, I got a bit fearful despite Anshu’s efforts as it was the main reason for going. On practice day, I went to one...