A taste of the trucking life
It took a few meetings with senior managers of Northern Cargo Service, and then Haranjit Singh, director, JIS Group (that owns this logistics business), to get permission to travel in a truck from Kolkata to Hyderabad.
Haranjit was intrigued why I would want to experience the rigours of a road trip spanning four days and 1,500 km. He was convinced after I told him I wanted to write an authentic account of the trucking life in India.
Day 1 (Panchla to Bhubaneswar)
Mohammad Alamgir is waiting with a loaded truck on the highway in Panchla, 35 km from Kolkata where I live. I clamber up his truck. Two cargo officers are joining us from the company the truck belongs to.
Rajesh Prasad, deputy manager (distribution) in charge of fuel supply, will assist Alamgir as a helper in the cabin. Administrative manager Harinder Pal Kaur is inspecting truck cabins and talking to drivers. She will follow us in a car to assess business challenges and opportunities on the route and, occasionally, join us in the cabin. After such earlier inspections, she had reported poor roads, inadequate facilities and multiple hazards for truck drivers on the highway. “FASTag has made movement smoother,” she says.
Alamgir starts the engine, revs up and hits 50kmph on NH16. ‘Safe Drive Save Life’, ‘Experience Excellence’, ‘Pukaro’, and ‘Sound dou (Blow horn)’… Loud lettering and colourful art on the back of trucks catch my attention as I sit next to the driver. It is a vantage point, as vehicles other than trucks are lower in height.
Drivers decide what to write on the back of their trucks. Sometimes, people who paint them have a say. We pass a roadside stall selling trinkets to decorate the truck. The black, metre-long mesh of threads with tassels, resembling the Punjabi hair ornament ‘paranda’, stands out.
Alamgir’s cabin is covered in laminate of black and pink leaves. The holy number 786 written in a heart-shaped charm hangs from a metal rod. Photos of the Kaaba in Mecca, and the green dome of the Prophet’s Mosque at Medina — two of Islam’s holiest sites, are also printed on the charm. I also spy a box with dates, another with dry figs, and a huge water jar. There is a seating area behind the driving seat. It is enough for two people to lie down side by side.
It is 25°C on my weather app. I slide a thin glass strip between two big windshields open. Cool air assails the cabin. Like a film trailer, the sights of political flags (of different parties in West Bengal), parked trucks, people waiting at bus stops, buses honking, drivers exchanging greetings, and tyre-mending shops pass us by in rapid succession.
The windshields look like a giant computer monitor divided into two. The road, split into three lanes with white reflective strips, reminds me of racing video games. And the rectangular green fields on either side of the highway bring back memories of the online game FarmVille.
It’s 9 am, an hour since we started. I feel drowsy and the trucks appear indistinguishable now. Upbeat music like ‘Yun Hi Chala Chal Raahi’ from Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Swades’ would help me stay up but Alamgir is not playing any because his full attention is on the road ahead. Chatting is out of the question as I don’t want to distract him.
Thirty minutes later, we stop at Hotel Midnight Express, run by an ex-army man. Iqbal, driving a truck along by the same company and headed to Goa, comes over for breakfast with his assistant. As we wolf down hot puris and chana masala, Alamgir and Iqbal let me in on their inside jokes. The drivers liken a chilly’s heat to a truck’s speed, ranging from 80 to 100 km, depending on how much it “burns”.
I also get a chance to know about them. Alamgir, in his early 40s, hails from Aurangabad, Bihar. A Class 3 dropout, he wanted to be a long-distance driver, something his father disapproved of. After a year and a half of training, he started driving trucks in 2011.
Iqbal is also a Bihari, from the Gaya district. About 150 people from his village work as drivers, which he blames on the lack of job opportunities in the state. He doesn’t want his children to follow in his footsteps because, despite delivering goods worth lakhs of rupees safely and honestly, the salary is inadequate.
But still, he reveres his life on the road, and muses poetically: “Road hamara aangan hai, gaadi hamara ghar ho jaata hai (The road is our courtyard, and the truck becomes our home).”
Alamgir chimes in: “Everything in a driver’s life is ‘unlimited’. If it’s sorrow, it’s a lot. If it’s hunger, it’s for a long time when the truck breaks down in a remote place.” During the lockdown in 2020, he got stranded for 15-20 days and had to thrive on what people who lived close to his parked truck gave.
The moment we resume the journey towards Odisha, I fall asleep. Around 1 pm, I wake up as we enter the state. The landscape has changed. The route from Kolkata was grassy and flanked by ponds. The soil is reddish here. Small temples appear, as do parched patches.
The weather goes from pleasant to muggy. Perhaps the Bay of Bengal (though far away) on our left has a role to play. Towards the evening, the lights add magic to the drive. Colourful fluorescent lights adorn the dhabas. Petrol pump signs glow on high poles. Reflector strips and headlights are aplenty. The moon is shining bright.
We halt on the outskirts of the capital city Bhubaneswar. I part with the truck and check into a hotel. I am going to return to spend the next two nights in the truck, so I must rest well.
Day 2 (Khordha to Varisam)
It’s 8 am and a Saturday but there’s no time for a leisurely breakfast.
The company’s car drops me at Khordha town where I meet Alamgir. I also meet Alok Kumar Chahataray who offers this 10-acre plot to trucks for free parking. He has also built toilets and bathrooms for the drivers. His idea was that it would bring more business to his petrol pump, just across the parking area. But only 40% of drivers passing by refuel their trucks here. He is considering charging them for parking.
On the way to Rambha, my app shows Chilika Lake to my left, and Khallikote and Bolagarh forests to my right. The tourist in me is delighted. We stop for lunch, and buy garam masala and black pepper from a shop nearby, known only to truck drivers. Prasad and I buy spices to take home.
Most drivers get a food allowance. A few carry stoves and prefer to cook their food at parking lots. This helps them save money, I learn. Some cook because they aren’t used to the food of the states they crisscross.
“Every driver starts out as a helper for a year or so. He sits by the left window, waves his hand to signal when the trucks are changing lanes and monitors the blind side,” Prasad tells me. After leaving behind a lake, a train, a biker group, and namak ki kheti (salt farms), we have some paperwork waiting at the state border. We enter Andhra Pradesh at 4.30 pm. White birds soaring, scarecrows wearing helmets, and a rundown vehicle languishing — the highway is a montage of infinite stories.
We break for tea at a stall where a Hrithik Roshan-Kareena Kapoor Khan song, ‘Ladka yeh kehta hai ladki se,’ is playing on television. We drive a little more. Truck drivers rarely overtake, and maintain a road discipline often missing in car and bike users in cities, I observe. But some do overspeed to meet the target, I learn.
The cabin has space only for two, so Prasad, who is assisting as a helper, has to shift out for the night to the closest hotel he can locate.
After dinner at 9.30 pm, Amalgir and I prepare to sleep inside the cabin, under the blue lights and a fan running on the truck’s battery. Strangely, I feel ‘transformed’. The truck has become my body and the window panes my eyes. I don’t feel out of place.
How do truck drivers stay awake and alert when they do multi-day trips? They take naps or tea breaks whenever they feel tired. They drive at night only if absolutely necessary, say, if they need to cross a city before morning. In some cities, heavy vehicles are not allowed to ply after daybreak. Drivers also eat nutritious food, Hanumant Reddy, a driver from Basavakalyan in Karnataka I meet later, says. And milk, curd, chhaa (tea) are favourites. Alamgir is particular about quality drinking water. He has fitted a small mechanical pump-tap on top of a jar to fill up his glass and bottle.
Day 3 (Varisam to Vijayawada)
The sun is up. Alamgir is checking engine oil, coolant, and the tyres by tapping them with a metal strip. He is listening to Quran verses playing on YouTube on his earphones. He listens to Bhojpuri songs in the evening.
In another truck, I came across on the journey, driver Ajay Paswan prays in front of the photos of ‘Bajrangbali’, ‘Shankar bhagwan’, ‘Vishwakarmaji’, ‘Ganeshji’, and ‘Jagannathji’. He also prays to ‘Ghar ke devi devta’ (family deities), and ‘Maa-baap’ (parents).
We hit the Visakhapatnam bypass at 8 am. The road surface has cracks. My shoes have acquired a soft Martian tint. We break for egg dosa and milky coffee. We resume. We get down again, this time, to buy Andhra specialities like Madugula halwa and a laddu made from coconut and jaggery syrup.
On the way to Vijayawada, I see men walking barefoot, wearing all black. They are Ayyappa devotees headed for Sabarimala. A small van vrooms past us. Young boys in the van wave at us and show a thumbs down, perhaps happy that their small van overtook a big truck.
At a quarter past one, we stop by a tank. Others park their trucks too. Some drivers start washing their clothes, and others take a dip. I am reluctant to bathe in the open but the heat is unbearable. I go for it. I feel fresh.
By evening, we stop a little after a toll plaza, at a stall selling idlis and bondas. Some drivers are busy on their phones — browsing Facebook, talking to their families, rebooting a hung device, and fixing WhatsApp problems. They turn to me for solutions hoping city folks know better. They are disappointed.
The drivers here are mostly from Bihar. One is talking about the state’s politics: “Now there are only two castes. The rich and the poor.” I would like to join in the conversation but I have developed a headache, my eyes are swollen, and my nose is congested. The rigours of truck travel are getting to me.
Alamgir is worried about my health but his immediate concern is I have been avoiding washrooms at dhabas all along. Much to our relief, I discover a dhaba with a clean toilet. We stop there for dinner. I am intrigued by polythene covers filled with a blue solution, hanging below fluorescent lights. They distract insects away from the food, I learn.
We halt on the highway for the night. My second night isn’t too comfortable — the mosquitoes are relentless and the fan offers little respite.
Day 4 (Vijayawadato outskirts of Hyderabad)
At 3.39 am, we start again. We cross the road that leads to the Vijayawada International Airport in 15 minutes. By 5 am, we are sipping tea at a stall and hear fajr-azaan, the morning prayer call of the day from a mosque.
We park along the highway, waiting for cargo officer Harinder’s car to catch up. Two hours go by. We are still waiting on the highway, spending time over cups of tea. This makes me reflect on the lives of the truck drivers. Alamgir recalls the time he had got stuck in a storm in Visakhapatnam: “It was so intense that it overturned empty trucks. Our lives were at stake.” Adjusting to weather changes is an everyday challenge,
he adds.
Other truck drivers, I meet on the go, talk of how some stretches of the highway are desolate. Some can be unsafe. I hear no ghost stories, but tales of snatchers, and fuel thieves.
Alamgir says this wait is unusual. I meet a sugarcane juice seller in the meantime. His name is Narulal Jat. He has brought his machine on a truck, all the way from his hometown of Deoli in Rajasthan. He sources the sugarcane from a seller who procures it from Nagpur. He expects better earnings in south India.
Harinder’s car arrives, finally. It’s past lunch time. She had got stuck in a business meeting on the way and then her car took a wrong turn, she explains.
An hour before reaching Hyderabad, Prasad, Kaur, and I bid goodbye to Alamgir on the highway. He will wait there till he receives instructions for unloading and the return journey.
Day 5 (Hyderabad)
Looking back, the highways appeared safe at times, and risky at other times. The hitch-hiking fantasies shown in films are not commonplace. Kaur says no one has asked to hitch a ride on the company’s trucks, giving me credit for such an attempt.
Truck drivers help the economy thrive as they ferry a variety of goods through the length and breadth of the country. They worry a lot about the prices of diesel and tyres. Navigating city roads is not something they enjoy, but the highways are their domain. They rest for a day or two before setting out on another long assignment. They think about their wives and children back in their hometowns. They go home during festivals or an emergency.
Back in Kolkata now, when I see a truck passing by, I stop and watch it. It is going on a long trip, with all its attendant joys and sorrows. Where is this one headed? I keep wondering.
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