I entered Gujarat as sick as a dog; and one could even say as sick as a Gujarati dog. On the border between the Rajasthan and the Gujarat we stopped to camp for the night in a government guest house. Having put the tent up amongst shady trees and beside a tiny chapel in the lowering dusk I was invited to have a whisky with some electrical engineers on their way back to the Gujarat from Rajasthan.

They were soon to take the road but they drank like fish and like most educated people in this country were totally in love with the sounds of their own voices. So I let them go on and on all about their trips to Canada and France. The monologue was horrifying: ‘Toronto, Calgary, Montreal…’

When they asked what I felt about India I knew the truth would be pointless and so even as one of them threw the empty whisky bottle into some woods – a gesture which is so Indian and which makes my skin crawl – I said, oh yes I love India and the Indians!

Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. I am fed up to death with this vulgar, stupid and indiscreet people. He then went on to extol the virtues and decry the sort comings of "our India, my dear Hyman".

All the while I was downing whisky with Pepsi and eating raw onions. Big Mistake. In the middle of the night the onions took their revenge on me and I spent the next eight hours in vomiting non-sleep.

And so my first day in the Gujarat, yesterday, was not a pleasure cruise. People seemed uglier, smellier and more obtusely stupid than ever. Last night we arrived in this desert city, famous for its Jain temples and every time we stopped the car we were surrounded by a crowd. It was like being in Pakistan again. Twenty or thirty men chewing pan looking at us, scratching their balls, spitting red pan juice and observing our every movement as we unpacked the car in front of the hotel.

I wonder what Indians do with their lives which makes the lives of someone else seem so hypnotising.