Tour guide Nigel Hankin, one of the few Britons to have stayed behind in India after its British rulers left the country in 1947, stands outside the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara in New Delhi
© AFP/File Manan Vatsyayana

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Almost everything about the "Nigel tour" of Delhi is far from the usual, right down to seeking an appointment: the 87-year-old Hankin does not have a telephone or an Internet connection. Word travels by mouth mostly among diplomats and foreign tourists.

"This is not a regular tour. Please do not mention how to get in touch with me, or there would be a stream of visitors," the gaunt expatriate warns at the start of a day-long trip through a city he made his home nearly 60 years ago, one of the last former colonials to remain in this vast country.

Hankin came to India on his way to Burma (now Myanmar) where he was sent to fight in World War II. The war ended before the British soldier could get there, and he remained in India instead.

Two years later in 1947 -- the year India gained freedom from its colonial masters -- Hankin came to the capital New Delhi, which the British had made the seat of what was once famously called the "jewel in the crown".

"I just loved it when I first came here. The place was so open then. There used to be so many deer, and we would go hunting," recalls the octogenarian, whose age has not diminished any memories.

When the sun finally did set on the British Empire and as his colleagues started to leave, Hankin knew immediately where his home would be.

"I liked the weather here. There were wonderful hills and clear blue waters, but equally the most appalling slums," he says of his fondness for a country he has never once thought of leaving since.

After quitting the British army as a captain, Hankin joined the British High Commission, where his "odd jobs" often included taking diplomats and their wives around the city -- something he has done for the past 50 years.

Since his retirement around 20 years ago, Hankin has conducted regular tours, for which one has to pay 2,000 rupees (about 45 dollars) per person and buy him lunch at the colonial-era Oberoi Maiden's hotel.

You can also buy a copy of his book, Hanklin Janklin, an idiosyncratic list of commonly seen items and phrases complied by Hankin and now being readied for its fifth edition.

-- 'Very few people in Delhi know this' --

Tour guide Nigel Hankin, one of the few Britons to have stayed behind in India
© AFP/File Manan Vatsyayana

The tour starts with a visit to the Indira Gandhi Memorial -- a museum where India's former prime minister and a member of the famed Gandhi dynasty lived and was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.

"She was no dumb belle," Hankin says, sounding like a proud father, as he points to a young Gandhi staring down from a black-and-white portrait.

Hankin wears wide-soled running shoes, black-frame glasses and casual Western clothes to cover his lean six-foot frame. His energy is constant despite the summer sun on his fair skin and on his pate covered by strands of gray hair.

His patter is a mixture of the British he learned growing up in Sussex, southwest England, and Hindi learned in India.

He moves through the house with the assurance of an ex-soldier amid nods from security guards as he describes Indira Gandhi's "exquisite taste. Everything is simple, but the best," he says.

As we walk past a picture of Jawaharlal Nehru -- Gandhi's father and the country's first prime minister -- incarcerated during the British rule, Hankin's admiration for India's most famous family is even more evident.

"We sent him to jail nine times, but he never bore a grudge," the guide says.

As he leads us to the next stop, a historic Sikh temple, Hankin says: "We have seen the bad things the Sikhs did. Now, we will see the good things they do."

Though a non-believer himself, Hankin is well-versed with the rules and ceremonies at religious places. He carries his own black turban to the temple to cover his head in accordance with the faith, and at Delhi's largest cremation ground, he knows the sacred hymns chanted at the time of a funeral.

"Here, they don't have funeral parlours. The body is cremated shortly after death," he tells us.

Next on the itinerary is a lesser-known historical site, called the Coronation Park -- a desolate stretch long forgotten by history, where King George V was declared the ruler of India in 1911.

It was also the site from where the new emperor of the colony would announce the city to be the new capital of India instead of eastern Calcutta (now Kolkata) city, paving the way for modern New Delhi.

"This is where New Delhi started, but very few people in Delhi know this," Hankin informs us of how the modern city built by the British came up, as he pulls out tattered but well-preserved pictures from a blue plastic file tied with green ribbon to recount tales from an era he himself had not seen, but has learned much about.

"Here the king is out hunting," he says holding up a photo from a newspaper, among scraps he cuts so that he can tell tourists tales of the city in his own way.

"The crown would cost three million pounds (5.7 million dollars) today. Of course, they billed it to the colony," he says pointing to a picture of King George's crown now housed in the Tower of London.

"Now, it is in Britain. Even if they want to return it, who would they hand it to -- India, Pakistan or Bangladesh?" Hankin chuckles, referring to India's neighbours which were part of its territory under British rule. Pakistan was created when India was partitioned at independence, while Bangladesh separated in 1971.

-- 'A few Brits moved out, and a few Indians moved up' --

The tour of Delhi -- which has been the capital of seven empires since the 12th century --, with its many identities, rich history and marked contrasts in many ways seems to mirror Hankin's life itself.

Like the city, Hankin witnessed eventful changes when the British left their most prized colony, yet very little changed in his own life -- just as the city moved on in a seamless blend of the old and the new, the colonial and the Indian.

"Those days, we thought the world was ours, but the World War changed everything," Hankin says with little nostalgia for the British Raj.

India's independence, however, meant little to him.

"In 1947, a few Brits moved out, and a few Indians moved up. Nothing else changed." He says he has no regrets for Britain's colonial past, and he gives no hint of having been upset over the turn of events.

He last visited Britain in 1983, and has never wanted to go back again.

"I would go there as long as the High Commission paid for it," says the bachelor, who kept few connections with his family back home, and whose Indian servant has been with him for 40 years.

"My brother came to India once. He thought there were too many Indians," says the reticent man who complains little about the city's population growth from three million to nearly 14 million since he arrived.

"Delhi has changed enormously, not all of which has been nice."

Hankin lives in the diplomatic enclave area of Chanakyapuri. He says his lifestyle is very simple, he mainly eats Indian food prepared by a cook, works on his book, reads the Kolkata-based Statesman newspaper and generally stays away from anything to do with government.

And like the city, he embraces the old and the new with equal measure, as was evident in a walk through the narrow bylanes of what is now called "Old Delhi" -- once a 17th century Mughal city, now famous for its teeming bazaars, and where time seems to have stood still for decades.

"Those days, we used to go there in tongas (horse carriages)."

-- 'It is still the same' --

In Delhi city, he guides us through dingy lanes, so narrow that only one person can make his way at a time past sacks of wares, as workers carry heavy gunny sacks on their backs and pull carts laden with goods.

Hankin walks in unobtrusively into shops: he knows what is kept where and picks up boxes from shelves to reveal their content.

"This is beeswax. You can polish your furniture with it," he says, then reaches further along. "Something here you will never find in the West ... very dangerous," he says as he gingerly picks up a bottle of mercury in the wholesale chemicals market.

At the nearby famous sari market, he tells you where to buy gold thread if you want to embroider clothes yourself, as we make our way past young women shopping for weddings.

"I used to accompany the women who wanted to buy saris," Hankin says of his tour customers.

Next, we stop at a furnishings shop. "The Americans use this. You will never find this in a British house," he says, pointing to tassles on rich pale green curtains in the window.

At the wholesale spice market, where the refreshing smells drown the stench from open urinals nearby, Hankin points to sacks of dry fruits. "These are imported from Turkey."

He leads the way into a dilapidated structure, whose wealthy owners have shifted to the plush south in the city, and which now serves as a warehouse watched by workers who sit there smoking bidis (hand-made cigarettes wrapped in a leaf).

"The house used to have a garden. Now the owners have gone," Hankin says, as the workers light up seeing his familiar frame.

"Jai Shri Ram (Hail Lord Ram). Haven't seen you for a long time," they greet him with part amusement, part curiosity.

When we emerge from the obscure, unlit streets of Old Delhi, the sun seems harsh and the heat unbearable.

Hankin wipes his brow, tired, but not complaining, and gently reminds us not to give away his contact details.

©AFP