The vigilance of Delhi's bureaucrats knows no end. Not a day passes without the announcement of some new crusade against the forces of evil. The babus' latest campaign is against sex clinics. According to the latest intelligence on the subject, there may be as many as 1,600 of these clinics in the Indian capital. Few, it seems, are licensed to practise.
Some outfits, like the Sablok Clinic or Hero Pharmacy in the old part of the city, have smart premises and advertise their services in the newspapers. "Regain health, vigour and vitality" says the former. "Is your married life unhappy because of sex problems?" asks the latter, adding, "Do not delay, consult today". Most, however, are located down festering alleyways or at the top of dingy stairwells.
Low-rent operators simply squat on the footpath, surrounded by their powders, pills and potions.
"These so-called clinics are becoming a public nuisance and some action has got to be taken," says Dr Vijay Sinha, assistant director of Delhi's Directorate of Health Services. "We intend to mount raids to verify which ones are illegal. We also want to stop newspapers from running ads for these clinics. Most of them are run by quacks with no qualifications."
Finding myself in the Daryaganj area of the old city with a Hindi-speaking colleague recently, I suggested we investigate a little further.
Fowad agreed. After loitering briefly outside the clinic of Hakim Saheb ("a famous sexologist", said my companion) and another establishment whose advertising proclaimed simply "Gas and Sex", we decided upon the Chetan Clinic. A vibrant red and yellow sign over the doorway promised everything "For Vigorous and Happy Married Life".
Upstairs we were greeted by a wiry little man with thick glasses and crooked teeth who introduced himself as Dr Gupta. Whether he was a doctor in the Western sense of the word might be open to debate but he assured us that he had learned his craft at the side of his father and his grandfather, both traditional healers.
"Many adolescents come to me with their problems," Dr Gupta told Fowad in Hindi. "They are concerned with such things as masturbation, premature ejaculation and impotence. Most of them are very ignorant of these matters.
"I prescribe some remedies which are made from special herbs and in most cases they are cured."
Whereupon, Dr Gupta asked his assistant to bring some pills from a row of jars lined up on a shelf in an adjoining room. Though he could not divulge their secret ingredients, Dr Gupta was happy to explain their healing properties. The purple one, he explained, was for thickening semen. The orange one was for urinary infections. And the small silver one was for "nightfall".
It perhaps needs to be explained here that a very stern line is taken on both masturbation and nocturnal emissions in India. The spilling of seed, whether by design or default, is believed to sap energy and sexual vigour.
The wastage of too much, it is said, can lead to all sorts of miseries: constipation, headaches, insomnia, penis shrinkage, even mental retardation.
"Young people in India must be vigilant," said Dr Gupta. "In the UK, kissing and holding hands is normal. But not here. Young men can get excited after seeing sexy scenes in Hindi films and then they are frustrated."
SEXY scenes in Hindi films, it must be remembered, consist of couples prancing around alpine meadows and the occasional shot of a wet sari. With kissing outlawed by the Indian censors, film-makers are obliged to depict physical intimacy with images of cooing doves or roses swaying in the breeze. There are plenty of heaving bosoms and longing glances but little flesh is bared and virtue always remains intact.
So strict is the censorship code, that an advertising agency magazine has recently decided to defy the government by running a competition for the best kissing in a commercial. The move came after a toothpaste advert was withdrawn because it met with the disapproval of the Broadcasting Minister.
"The attitude to sex in India is not very open or healthy," says Ameeta Handa, a health consultant specialising in human sexuality. "Sex is considered shameful."
Handa has a community health qualification from Trinity College, Dublin where she studied from 1997-98. She now runs a clinic on sexual health in Delhi. Her newspaper advertisement offers counselling on "AIDS, Family Life, Personality and Human Sexuality".
"India and Ireland have very similar attitudes to sexuality," she says. "I find the same kind of repression in both countries. Indians are like the Irish in that they find it difficult to talk about the subject."
She believes the situation in India is compounded by the lack of sex education in schools and by the rigorously conservative nature of Indian society.
"There are so many misconceptions about homosexuality, about masturbation, even about how people get pregnant," she says. "The sex clinics are exploiting this ignorance.
"People who need help and advice go to these places looking for a quick fix. They believe all they have to do is take some pill but it's complete nonsense."
Handa sees herself as a pioneer in the field of Indian sexuality.
Unlike the "Gas and Sex" clinic in Delhi, which takes the view that most sexual problems originate in the stomach, she insists they are nearly all in the mind.
It is hard to believe that India is the land which produced that notorious manual of sexual gymnastics, Kama Sutra (in Sanskrit, The Guide to Pleasure). There is no sex education in schools. Dating is rare, most marriages are arranged and few married couples enjoy privacy, having to share their sleeping quarters with other family members.
A recent survey concluded that only the Chinese and Taiwanese are slower in losing their virginity than Indians. No Indian language - or so I have been informed - has the word for orgasm.
"It's hard to exaggerate the degree of sexual ignorance in India," says the editor of Indian Cosmopolitan, Priya Ramani. "That's why there are so many sex clinics. And that's why our magazine is one of the key sources of information about sex. We get a lot of letters from readers thanking us for helping them improve their sex lives."
Indian Cosmo is, not surprisingly, more conservative than its Western counterparts. A breakthrough, after four years in existence, will be the magazine's first swimsuit cover.
"It took us a long time to find an Indian model to do it," says Ramani.
"None of the Bollywood actresses would do it. As for content, we're a lot less radical than the UK edition which does a lot of sex position articles and so on. American Cosmo recently ran an article entitled 'Blow his Mind' and contained some fairly graphic instructions. That would be out of the question for us."
In the metropolitan centres such as Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, attitudes are slowly changing. It would have been unthinkable a few years ago but couples can now occasionally be seen holding hands in cinemas and bars - or even embracing in the more secluded areas of public parks.
But this is a society still firmly rooted in its conservative ways. The images in foreign films, cable television and women's magazines might be introducing many new ideas - but they undoubtedly bring with them much confusion and frustration.