I dragged the bed over to the wrought iron railings and sat on it wrapped in my blanket against the cold night air and I revelled in my new-found wealth. I promoted myself to the rank of Mogul Emperor that night, Shah Jahan or some such notable.

However most Mogul Emperors had someone nipping at their heels, some enemy who finally pushed them off their thrones, and I was no exception. Shah Jahan had his son who wanted power for himself – and got it. I had my dental abscess, and it kicked in with a vengeance after those few hours of respite. I could feel poison collecting behind my cheek, just between my eye and my nose. The pain radiated up behind my eye, deep into my head, into my ear and down the wall of my throat.

Toothache tincture was duly applied, but only as a duty; I knew it would do no good. Sometimes packing round the gum with salt worked, but not this time; and it was late, there would be no dentists open and how would I find one anyway?

The only solution was to start walking. I gave up my throne, abandoned the view and the adulation of my subjects and went out on the street to wander among them incognito. I longed to breathe cold air of which there was plenty, but it didn’t cool the inside of my mouth. Maybe heat would work I thought, so I sought out a place that was open and ordered a hot lemon drink. The place was filthy. The water used for making my drink came out of a tap that looked as if it was encrusted with about 100 years worth of sediment and deposits of some sort. Rats ambled across the floor and a cow paid a visit. The hot drink didn’t do much, but as I started to walk down towards the train station the pain abated.

I thought this would be a good time to return to my royal box, but as soon as I settled down the pain thundered in again just to remind me that even Emperors are never beyond the general suffering of mere mortals. I set off again to walk, and every time I sat down to talk or to eat I was walloped in the eye by my abscess. It was getting very late, but the streets were still busy, though most shops were closed for the night. Small groups of men sat around, some settling down in doorways for the night, hiding their bodies and heads under thin blankets. In the quieter stretches, away from the busyness on the night, I could hear the ominous but reassuring click of the canes carried by the patrolling policemen as they struck them on the road to let people know they were about.

I walked. I did such a tour of Delhi that night that every part of the city felt the drag of my tired feet. I kept away from the boring bit of course, the clinical monstrosity the English stuck on, but Chandni Chowk was well travelled and the steps of the Jama Masjid were worn down just that little bit more. From time to time, further out of town, I stopped to talk to men sitting around burning braziers but I could never chat for long. Around five in the morning, my eyelids drooping, I was able to spend a prolonged time with some men gathered around a two bar electric fire wired into a street light. They made room for me even though the lack of a common language made chatting impossible. I sat there cross-legged until about six o’clock, and by that time the poison seemed to have seeped out of the infected gum if such a thing is possible. The smell of burning seemed to have helped. In every street there had been fires, attended or otherwise, that were fuelled with green wood and belched out sweet smoke. I felt so cared for, caressed by the smoky balm of Delhi. The city loved its Emperor, and now that he had shared in the suffering of its people, it was generous in its forgiveness, and he was restored to his royal box once more.