Truck de India!

by Rajat Ubhaykar

  So I’m not particularly disappointed, partly relieved, in fact, when a couple of hours later—during the course of which I spot innumerable roadside shops named after Devnarayan—Mahendra and Raju offload me unceremoniously on the outskirts of Jaipur. They look sheepish, and request me to get off politely, but offer no explanation. Rampur is still a couple of days away and apparently, they’ve had enough of me and my questions.

  I am not one to overstay my welcome. They’ve been exceptionally accommodative of me and I intend to depart on a happy note. I thank them, quickly grab my backpack, disembark, bid them alvida and find a shaded spot by the highway, eyes on the road ahead—time to find another ride. But where to? I realize I’ve already stopped caring. This trip is going to be even more unpredictable than I had accounted for. It is time I truly embraced its spontaneity. Smoking a consolatory cigarette, I reconcile myself to the fact that when I start out in the morning, I’d have no idea where I’m going to be spending the night. I reckon I like it that way. Isn’t that what differentiates travel from tourism? And wasn’t that the whole point of my journey?

  Goli Andar, Yaar Jalandhar

  The next afternoon in Jaipur, still groggy from a sleepless night at a friend’s house, I change my tack. Instead of approaching commission agents inside the Transport Nagar, who may or may not be napping, I decide to approach stationary trucks on NH8 outside it. I’m hoping I’ll find a ride to Delhi but I know within myself that the highway gods have something else in store. Not that I particularly care about where I’m headed. My plan is to keep heading north until I reach Srinagar, the destination I picture to keep myself going in this oppressive heat.

  I spot some drivers snoozing on mattresses spread underneath their trucks, seeking desperate escape from the April sun that’s raining down fire from the sky. Others are perched in their cabins, waiting for a call from their agent or cooking lunch for themselves. Fortunately, it doesn’t take me very long to find someone amenable to the idea of me accompanying them.

  ‘ID hai?’ the driver asks me, with the professional briskness of an airport security guard, when I tell him I’m a journalist writing a book about truck drivers. I hold out my Press Card, which seems to satisfy him.

  ‘Sorry magar safety ke liye poocha. Kabhi aisa koi mila nahi hai na (Sorry I only asked for the sake of safety. The thing is, I’ve never met anyone doing such a thing before),’ he says, the pall of suspicion on his face transforming into a disarming smile.

  ‘No, you did the right thing. I could have been anyone.’

  ‘To be honest, you don’t look dangerous at all, but I just asked to be sure.’

  I can’t help but chuckle at his candour.

  ‘Myself Jagdev Singh, and this is my brother Jorawar,’ he says, pointing to a gaunt man sitting in the driver’s seat. ‘Pyaar se Jora (They call him Jora out of affection).’ I pass my bag to Jagdev and haul myself into the truck.

  Jorawar and Jagdev, brothers born one year apart, are dressed in almost identical off-white shirts and brown trousers. But their appearances are distinct. Jora has sunken cheeks, glossy hair, and a shrivelled face that is cast in a state of haunted alertness. Jagdev on the other hand has wavy hair and a fuller visage, framed by laughter and good humour.

  They tell me they’ve been waiting at this spot for the past hour. It seems RTO officials have erected a barricade some kilometres ahead so they’re waiting for them to pack up and leave for lunch, before going any further. An RTO driver who is Jora’s man on the inside has passed on this valuable scoop of information. The brothers are now awaiting a call from him for the go-ahead signal. Meanwhile, a restless Jora uses funny gestures to ask truckers coming from the opposite direction whether the RTO guys have dismantled the checkpost. The response isn’t encouraging.

  It doesn’t take me long to find out the reason behind their determined avoidance of the RTO officials. Their truck is hauling over fifty tonnes of Kota stone, more than double the truck’s stipulated capacity of twenty-one tons, all the way to Chandigarh, which is also apparently my next destination. In other words, their truck would easily qualify as one of the most severely overloaded trucks plying at this moment in India.

  This is nothing new for Jora and Jagdev. ‘This is our regular route,’ says Jagdev. The brothers routinely traverse the Punjab–Rajasthan route, transporting Kota stone, a kind of limestone that serves as excellent cheap building material, from Ramganj Mandi in Kota district to Punjab, and scrap steel from Mandi Gobindgarh in Punjab on to Rajasthan. Ramganj Mandi and Mandi Gobindgarh (mandi meaning market) typify the numerous trading towns scattered across India, whose economic life revolves around one or two principal items—Kota stone and steel, respectively, in this case—their fortunes often inextricably tied up with the vagaries of the global commodity markets.

  The village my companions hail from isn’t far away from Mandi Gobindgarh, or Loha Nagari (Steel City), as Jora calls it. As we swelter in the cloistered heat of the truck cabin ventilated by a single, ineffective fan, Jora starts telling me of the local legend behind the origin of Mandi Gobindgarh, as per Sikh tradition.

  ‘The legend says that during a clash with Mughal forces, Guru Hargobind and his followers found that their weapons had been badly damaged. The followers pleaded their inability to continue fighting in the absence of steel to repair their weapons. It was then that Hargobind proclaimed the spot one day will host a magnificent steel-making centre. That’s how Mandi Gobindgarh came to manufacture steel.’

  The legend is interesting especially considering that Hargobind, the sixth of ten Gurus, was the one responsible for initiating the militarization of Sikh society in the 17th century, as a response to the execution of his father Guru Arjan by the Mughal emperor Jahangir. He took to carrying two swords with him, symbolizing miri and piri—the Guru as the source of both material and spiritual authority—marking an evolutionary break from the apolitical bhakti roots of Guru Nanak’s faith that stressed on quiet devotion.

  Jora and Jagdev tell me they are ‘Ramdasiya Sikhs’, the descendants of the ‘lowered’ castes—the Julahas (weavers) and the Chamars (leather workers)— who were attracted to the egalitarian principles of Sikhism and converted in the hope of escaping caste discrimination and caste itself. Ironically enough, Jagdev tells me that the Julahas and Chamars among the Ramdasiyas themselves don’t intermarry.

  The brothers do not sport the pagdi (turban). ‘We are Sahajdharis. Officially, we are Sikhs, but otherwise we consider ourselves similar to Hindus,’ he says.

  Sahajdhari, literally meaning a ‘slow adopter’, refers to those Sikhs who, unlike the Amritdhari Sikhs, practice the religion without strictly adhering to all the five basic principles of Sikhism. These are the five famous Ks—kada (bracelet), kangha (comb), kesh (unshorn hair), kirpan (dagger), and kaccha (cotton undergarments)— articles of faith that Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth and final Guru, decreed Khalsa Sikhs to sport at all times. I write in my logbook that out of the five Ks, Jora seems partial towards the kangha, often running it through his smooth black hair absentmindedly, and then depositing it carefully in his front shirt pocket.

  But then, Sikhism in Punjab has strayed from the path the Gurus had shown. From a doctrinal perspective, Guru Granth Sahib is supposed to be the final, eternal Guru of the Sikhs, as laid down by Guru Gobind Singh. No living guru is to be worshipped. Yet numerous deras have proliferated, religious establishments headed by godmen, who are venerated by many Sikhs.

  The brothers themselves are devotees of a ‘brahmagyani sant’ (enlightened saint) called Sant Baba Ajit Singh Hansali Wale, whose photo occupies pride of place at the centre of their truck. I notice his face is conspicuously disfigured, lending him a ghastly appearance.

  Jagdev catches me staring and hastens to explain. ‘He was a beautiful man earlier. Then one day, a couple went to the saint with a complaint that no one is ready to marry their daughter because of the scars on her face. The saint kindly decided to take her scars upon himself. That’s why
he looks like this now.’

  I’m amused. Hagiographical stories of saints like this have fascinated me ever since I was a child. I remember devouring stories on Marathi sants like Tukaram, Samarth Ramdas, Chokha Mela with great relish. And I always would wonder: just who in the world wrote this? They never seemed to have an author. And then it struck me. Nobody knows the author’s identity because these stories have been passed down as children’s tales across generations.

  The brothers too were introduced to the Baba by their parents, who were ardent devotees and would take Jora and Jagdev for his darshan. Going by Indian standards, their childhood was spent in relative comfort, with both parents in stable government jobs. Their father was a jawan (infantryman) in the Indian army while their mother was employed at the Food Corporation of India (FCI). But here, their family’s story takes on one of those quintessential Indian trajectories that are sad because they’re true.

  When the Brothers were in their teens, a car accident cruelly claimed both their parents, a tragedy that brought in its wake debilitating financial instability. ‘Raste pe aa gaye the (We were brought down to the streets,)’ says Jora. After their relatives refused to have anything to do with them, Jora had no choice but to drop out of school and take up a job as a handyman with a mechanic. He, however, encouraged Jagdev to continue studying. A few years later, when it was time for their sister to get married, they had to sell their house, the only asset they possessed, to pay for the dowry.

  Jora says, ‘Sometimes I think whether I’d be doing better if I’d studied, but then I see people who have graduated B.A. and M.A. and are still unemployed and I rethink. Maybe education has been reduced to a degree now, a mere piece of paper.’

  We are off. The RTO driver has finally called to tell Jora it’s safe to go. The truck is awfully slow to accelerate, given the crushing load it’s carrying. Chandigarh is over five hundred kilometres away. At this rate, we’ll be lucky to reach there tomorrow, I think to myself, with a stab of slight impatience.

  To make matters worse, we are soon ensnared in a traffic jam stretching as far as my eye can see. Cars, buses, trucks, and even camel carts hauling firewood, everybody jostles for space, grabbing the tiniest chance to outmaneuver each other with dangerous aggression. Meanwhile, the smokestacks of a factory serenely spit out a steady stream of smoke, the acidic compound of vehicular and industrial emissions seeping into our lungs. A dhaba named Highway Star evokes a strange urge in me to listen to some Deep Purple.

  Jora doesn’t listen to any music but utilizes the spare time to meticulously dust every square inch of the dashboard with a cloth. Their truck is extraordinarily tidy, decorated with floral motifs, and idealized bucolic images of Punjab—women in salwar kameez dancing, knitting, and roasting rotis in a communal setting that’s about to explode with joy.

  He lights a Four Square cigarette. I’m a little surprised given the injunction against tobacco among Sikhs, but then, it doesn’t take me long to discover that Jora is not really a Sikh. He is not even a human. The guy’s a chimney, if I’ve ever seen one. He runs through forty of these Four Square cigarettes in a single day’s journey—lighting them with his treasured pink lighter, leaning against the wheel while steering the truck with his elbow. Even then, he has the gall to lament that he wants to stop smoking because he spends all his savings on cigarette packs. At Rs 50 a pack, Four Square is a relatively cheap brand. But when you smoke four packs a day, it adds up to a daily expenditure of two hundred, not an insignificant amount by any measure.

  But Jora takes his addictions very seriously indeed. If he’s smoking, that means there’s got to be a lighter and ashtray around. What’s the use of doing something if you’re not doing it properly? He says it’s a shauk (hobby) for him. Except when he says shauk, it’s like a millennial saying passion. Jora, the shaukeen, is a man of enthusiastic extremes. Clear-headed Jagdev, on the other hand, is the picture of moderation. While Jora smokes, Jagdev keeps accounts, carefully noting down their trip expenses in really tiny handwriting in a yellowing notebook.

  The traffic is letting go. Upon seeing this, Jora takes out a paper bag from a concealed compartment in the dashboard, and proceeds to use a visiting card to scoop out a powdery, dry brown substance from the bag into his mouth.

  I recognize the substance from a desperate journey I had made in the general compartment of a train from Delhi to Mumbai which had people occupying every square inch of the floor, immobilized in their respective positions by the delicate equilibrium of crushed bodies. The only person displaying any sense of urgency at that time had been a sardarji beside me who had painstakingly extracted a packet containing the same brown substance and swallowed it with water. He had observed me keenly watching him, and even offered me some. I had declined then. But I had learnt what it was called.

  ‘Bhukki?’ I ask Jora, as he rinses it with water, shaking his head to make sure the water mixes with the bhukki properly and gulps it all down satisfyingly. He nods his head. ‘Yes. They also call it doda or doda post here in Rajasthan.’

  Post is the local term for the poppy plant, which is the source of all opiates. The bhukki—the dried pod of the poppy plant—looks like finely grinded saw-paper. Jora tells me a visiting card or ‘card’ is the standard unit of bhukki measurement. Jora has carried the same card in his shirt pocket for years now. It’s almost as if this hardware store visiting card from Moga is his jigri dost, a sentimental witness to this solitary sin of his. He claims it even seems to help him measure out his dose accurately.

  He holds out the packet of bhukki for my perusal. It doesn’t look particularly dangerous—no syringes, or synthetic substances—this is au naturale, totally organic. I am curious to try some, and I am secretly whooping with joy when he finally offers. I nervously scoop the bhukki into my mouth using the card, my hand shivering slightly. Its extreme dryness performs a chokehold on me, desiccating my mouth, forcing me to reach out for the bottle of water. The bhukki really won’t go down the throat unless washed with some water. As I gulp the water, I wait for its effects to make themselves felt. Rather prematurely, I admit. I should have known drinking poppy husk isn’t the same as a tequila shot downed in a dim-lit bar.

  Some time passes. As I watch the hill temples of Rajasthan, the saffron flags crowning them, jut out in the distance, I realize the opium is beginning its work. There has been no drastic transformation in my state of mind; the drug has worked on me imperceptibly. My mind is engulfed by a mellow, melancholic haze. It’s not a euphoric peak. More like a valley. It’s as if I’ve been hauling a heavy psychic load all this while, which is being relieved, one kilo at a time. I feel at ease. My mental functions feel mildly, pleasantly retarded. In any case, thinking too much never did anyone good.

  I ask Jora if he also takes charas-ganja (marijuana). He dismisses the idea vehemently. ‘Woh cheez dimaag se paidal bana deti hai aadmi ko. Use lekar gaadi chalana safe nahi hota (That drug makes you mentally handicapped. Driving is not safe while you’re under its influence),’ he says. You’re probably right Jora, I think to myself, you’re probably right. Of course you know what you’re talking about.

  This blazing afternoon, the tantalizing mirages it conjures, somehow feels cooler to me. I gaze out the window. Men in soiled white dhotis and colourful turbans squat by the road, flanked by women in flowing black dresses with gorgeous mirror-work, all of them in the sun seemingly without a purpose, assessing our passing vehicle with vacant stares. ‘I simply don’t understand why people in Rajasthan insist upon sitting in the sun even when there’s shade right there,’ says Jora, indignant on their behalf. Meanwhile, he passes sideway glances at me, wordlessly curious about the effects of the bhukki on me. I merely nod my head, with the shadow of a smile playing on my face.

  Interestingly, the bhukki Jora consumes is legal. India is one of the few countries allowed to legally cultivate medicine-grade opium, and the only one permitted to extract opium gum, which it supplies to pharma companies across the world. The co
mpanies, in turn, use it to synthesize codeine, morphine, and other medicinal derivatives. The codeine, for instance, finds its way into cough syrups, which has consequently developed a reputation for off-the-counter abuse.

  Commercial poppy cultivation in India is restricted to southern Rajasthan—including Bhilwara, Udaipur and Chittorgarh districts, which I passed with the Gujar crew—the adjoining Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh, and a handful of districts in southern Uttar Pradesh.

  Many truckers including Jora procure bhukki from licensed government shops. Jora points out one of the shops to me on the way. It’s hidden away among hardware stores and motor garages—a nondescript establishment peddling a highly addictive drug in plain sight. Dhabas too sell bhukki, but at a premium. Jora prefers to source it directly from licensed dealers. Two thousand rupees per kg seems to be the going rate currently.

  Curiously, while opium is grown in southern Rajasthan, opium addiction is concentrated in northern and western Rajasthan, the areas adjoining Punjab. This is because Punjab and the neighbouring parts of Rajasthan and Haryana have a long and illustrious history of opium use; it’s a part of the socio-cultural fabric of the region. Even today, guests are offered opium diluted with water as a welcome drink, something that landed former Union Minister Jaswant Singh in the eye of a storm in 2007.

  Landlords are known to distribute bhukki among farmhands in the Malwa region of Punjab, bordering Rajasthan. Jora tells me, ‘It usually happens in the harvesting season. The bhukki helps the labourers work long hours in the sun.’ The elderly are also known to use bhukki as a pain reliever.

  Opium use in the region dates back to the Harappan age. In fact, the only place in the entire Harappan zone where opium poppy seeds have been found is a late Harappan site called Sanghol in Fatehgarh Sahib district, incidentally where Jora and Jagdev hail from.