ROADTRIP: Jamshedpur-Ludhiana-5

Bathing, I found, is a luxury when you are travelling on a truck over 1650 km on Indian highways.

I mean the closed door bathing which most of us are used to in our daily life.

During my November 2010 Chennai-Gurgaon (2800 km) trip over 7/8 days, I had the chance to bath twice. Luckily the weather was fine then - the onset of winter even in the sultry southern states.

This time, the weather was equally supine because it was still mid-February and I was travelling in the eastern and northern India.

Around 12 noon, we exited Jharkhand through the first private toll station at Raso Dhanolti near Barhi and entered NH 2. Wow! It was a great relief to see a pucca national highway.

How long this luxury would last? I asked Pandeyji.

Till we cross Benares - maybe 250 km - after sunset. By then, we would have exited Bihar also.

Hardly 15 minutes after crossed Barhi toll gate, our trailer came to a halt at a secluded and solitary dhaba.
There were two more Credence Logistics trailers already parked and saw a few drivers lying on the coir cot under the thatched roof.

Pandeyji exchanged greetings with them.

"Now is the time for bath," announced Pandeyji proudly.

We ejected out of the horse and I looked around. Well, there was a 8 x 4 feet water tank and a hose pipe was connected to a nearby well. The tank was filled to the brim. There was none around that place except us. On the near tree, some wet clothes were hung out he clothesline for drying.

With a set of changing clothes, I approached the tank and dipped my fingers into it. It was ice cold.

"You'll enjoy, sirji," cooed Pervez.

Cool wind. Warm sunshine. Cold water. It was blissful.

Next 30 minutes flew away in relishing this open air bath.
Incidentally the dhaba belonged to an ex-employee of Credence Logistics who saw a future in running the dhaba instead of "drivery". Well, that is the word I kept hearing from drivers when they talk about their profession. The second driver or assistant calls him pursuing "conductory". The dhaba owner also acts an external outsourced assistance in helping Credence drivers in managing Bihar highway authorities.

Back in the saddle, all Credence Logistics vehicles drove in unison with the dhaba owner's assistance hitchhiking in one of them towards actual entry into Bihar. After you exit the Barhi tollgate, one is almost in no-man's land. But the roads are fine.

Drivers in opposite direction were signalling that there were no RTOs or Traffic Inspectors on the road. What happened next?

“Are you mad? Stop flashing that currency note in my face. They are watching,” shouted the officer at the Jharkhand-Bihar checkpost on National Highway 2. The young truck driver moving out of Bihar was baffled. Again, he was thrusting the currency note into the hands of the officer on road, surrounded by lathi-wielding cops. From the other side of the ride, seated inside a truck, moving into Bihar near the same spot I was watching this unfolding drama with a lot of curiosity.

What happened to this officer? Is it not his routine to accept money from truckers at checkpost and permit them to ply? If so, why is he behaving abnormally this morning by refusing to accept the bribe offered? I heard him again: “They are watching.” Who is watching? It took a few minutes to realise some senior officers have landed at the office across the road and presumed to be watching the happenings at the checkpost. Whether all this drama is being monitored by the officers or not is beside the point. The unadulterated truth is that bribe-giving and bribe-taking is a routine at most of the interstate borders.

When the same officer moved to our truck, I casually asked him: “What happened?” while he was checking our papers. Before waving us away in the shortest possible time saying, “all is in order”, he said: “officers” – a fact we already surmised. We did not offer any “speed money”. And he did not expect too. The roadside vulture was tamed temporarily though. Well, it was Day 2 and we had hardly covered 150 kilometres so far. More than 1400 km to be covered yet with four more state borders to cross before our destination is reached. More drama in store, I knew.

(To be continued)