'Every day is a windin road'

My work (a 4 letter word) keeps me on the road for over 20 days in a month and therefore the rest of the time is spent recovering either in bed catching sleep or in coffee shops waking up. That would make me a sort of expert on highways you would think, so did I, but oh boy was I wrong.

“The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see,” says G.K. Chesterton and just when I thought I’d seen everything, having been the quintessential tourist, along came 'Highway On My Plate'.

The man puts it better than I can …so what can I say? I saw things in the shooting of this programme that I never had the time to see.

Remember the floating restaurant in Sirhind in episode two, en route to Amritsar? You may have been there, but if you walk 10 steps ahead there is a little canal about 15 feet across with the sky blue water jetting into it from the main canal.

Where it goes or what it's called, I don’t know but what I can tell you is that on a hot summer afternoon the water is ice cold.

If you go down about 75 metres from the floating restaurant, it is about 5 feet deep and so a dip and some “Ghori –Ghori” which is the popular swimming pool game of knocking off a person sitting on another’s shoulder, is the order of the day.

Often the journey itself becomes the motive for most travellers and that’s when you really get places...reaching the destination is inconsequential.

“Keep your friendships in repair” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have known my friend Mayur for the last 32 years. It’s a long time by any standard, primarily by the If-you-know-Mayur standard.
Between the two of us we have spent many a year travelling to the remote areas of the world and have covered all the continents barring the Poles.

With all such friendships that go on for long, the word ‘repair’ becomes critical.
When our friend (more Mayur’s than mine I must confess) Niku (AKA Abhinandan Sekhri or Director Saab) called Mayur and asked us to come in for a ‘sort of’ screen test for a ‘sort of’ a travel show we jumped at the chance to spend some time together, since our professions did not allow it.

How it all went through is merely detail, the fun part is the show. Over 200 kilograms of anchors, more food eaten than you would have thought possible, the only problem — eat and your stomach be damned, a script…what’s that?

These are all the lines that I think would make splendid promotional statements for the show, which I am sure you will agree has rather ‘unconventional’ anchors.

Having said that, it goes to reason that we pretty much got to do, what we do and thanks to the quirky world views of one Niku (AKA ‘Director Saab’) the result kept us in good humour. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying it too.

The complexity of a shoot must never be confused with the slick simplicity of the end result. One has to keep in mind that hours of footage gets edited to a tiny fraction of its original length and the picture unfolds.
I’m not complaining but what it does is leave out a lot of stuff that I think could be fun.

Take the Puran Singh Dhaba of Ambala for example, either the man had many split personalities, each with a dhaba named after it or they simply haven’t bothered to think of any new names.

Every dhaba seems to have the Puran Singh branding as its main USP, which distracts them from simple things like cleaning the places up, or upgrading services in fact it can be terrifying as we found out.

Right in the middle of the shoot, with the two of us deeply involved in getting to the bottom of the location of the original dhaba, we heard loud abusive language being directed at no one in particular.

We had the misfortune of being caught in the no man’s land between two Puran Singh dhabas and a lady (a relative of Puran Singh’s) perceived us to be in her dhaba territory, which made us sitting ducks for abuse.

To add to the abuse (which was funny …had never heard a woman so fluently hand out oral punishment) was a big stick, no lets change that, a big log which she waved around effortlessly threatening to bash us if we ate at another dhaba and then took shots of her board.

It was a fight or flight moment and I am happy to say that both Mayur and I beat hasty retreats considering discretion to be the better part of valour.

I’m sure it’s on camera and when an adult lifestyle channel goes on air I can assure you that you will hear those lilting abuses on the waves and if you look closely, you will see the terror in our eyes.

The highway is mercurial and so are its denizens. Bajwa Dhaba opposite hotel Highway King on the way to Jaipur is just a case in the point.
There is an invisible line drawn across most places in this country and only those that belong ever cross that line.

We obviously were the first ever non-truck drivers who went to eat there. There is no signboard, so you will never know if you are at the right place.

But if a dozen or so burly truck driver types want to wear your dark glasses and sing out of tune Punjabi songs then rest assured you have arrived at the erstwhile Bajwa Dhaba.

What surprised me was the warmth and acceptance we immediately received from the guys there. The fact that we were singing out of tune Punjabi songs definitely enhanced the camaraderie.

Whatever it was I have never made so many good friends, in such a short time ever. The hugs and the joy came out on the 3rd episode and is clear for all to see but let me tell you, most of that footage is unusable for the number of abuses hurled on camera!

Every line was punctuated with a liberal dose of colloquial swear words and that was just Mayur. The truck drivers were worse but at the end of the day the acceptance and comfort level we found there remains unrivalled.

There is a spontaneous joy that these people on the highway live their lives with.
Live your life and enjoy it when the going is good …you never know when the potholes slow you down. A lesson learned from the boys at Bajwa’s.

There were other experiences as well, on the road to Ajmer, as we got closer to Ajmer Sharif, I could feel the power of the saint.

The overwhelming emotion one feels is respect and a strong sense of peace. I felt the same at the Golden Temple, although people looked different but the same awe inspiring strong sense of being was omnipresent.

Often I feel that same power and draw for all holy places be it Tirupathi, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Goa, Ajmer Sharif, the Golden Temple and yes even the Bahai temple in Delhi.

The Dargah of Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri with its Sufi sensibilities drives the point home. God’s home is God’s home and perhaps to a true believer (or non-believer) it is the power of the almighty that is gratifying.

All these places invoked a similar response in me, one of respect and peace. Places, where if we allow our prejudices to fall away we might find the answers simply by allowing ourselves to feel the omnipotent presence of that which was there before we were and will remain after we have gone.

When you have travelled enough and been to places of worship that not necessarily are those of your own faith you immediately find a broader aspect.

My advice, go visit a church, a temple, a gurudwara and a mosque this week and let me know which one you think had more draw and power…your answer might surprise you.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, leave your prejudice at home.

'Every day is a windin road,' sang Sheryl Crow. Couldn’t have put it better myself, so see you another day on another road, or should I say Highway? Bring your plate!