More recently, Ranjit Singh—the legendary Sikh ruler whom the mighty East India Company regarded as an ‘old fox, compared with whom even the wiliest of our diplomats is a mere innocent’—was characterized by the British, maybe conveniently so, as an opium eater. It’s no surprise opium today in Punjab is sometimes referred to as shahi nasha—the royal intoxicant.
Opium use in Ranjit Singh’s disciplined, well-trained army was common. After the dismantling of the short-lived, yet glorious Sikh Empire that soon followed Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, many Sikh soldiers enlisted with the British, which meant that opium was a crucial component of the British Indian war machine as well. Surgeon-Major Gimlette, who testified before the Royal Commission on Opium constituted by the British in 1895, said:
Almost all the Sikhs in infantry regiments, and a smaller proportion in cavalry regiments, are moderate opium-eaters. I never saw a soldier who suffered in the very slightest, either physically or morally, from the drug, or know of a case in which the dose was gradually increased to the stage of excessive consumption… Sikhs look on opium as a harmless and necessary stimulant, a substitute for tobacco, which they do not use. In moderation, this is what I believe it to be, and nothing else.
Naturally, it was the army’s responsibility to supply soldiers in areas where the drug was difficult to find, especially since it was believed that ‘moderate opium eating had a positive and desired impact on the attitude and fighting performance of the troops’. This practice continued till as recently as the 20th century.
During the First World War, the ‘Indian Army actually supplied its addicted troops with opium: in 1914, the Director of Supplies of the British Expeditionary Force was informed he had to supply a daily ration of the drug (euphemistically termed “Indian treacle”) to 6,000 Sikhs newly landed in France.’
Strongly defending moderate opium use against the criticism of temperance advocates, Sir John Strachey, a member of the Council of India and a former acting Viceroy, hailed the example of the Sikhs. He said that ‘… the practical answer to those who inveigh against the use of opium would be… to bring one of our crack opium-drinking Sikh regiments to London, and exhibit them in Hyde Park. There is no more vigorous, manly, handsome race to be found, not only in India, but the world. They are the flower of our army, and one of the bulwarks of our Empire, and yet the use of opium among them is universal.’
Jora no longer remembers why his body needs the bhukki. It’s been a while since he stopped gaining any pleasure out of it. He only knows not taking it would mean death, but not before the living hell of opium withdrawal.
‘It’s terrible. Your entire body is on fire, the eyes start watering, the calves hurt, the body feels broken down. Behisaab ultiyan, tattiyan (Uncontrollable vomiting, defecating). It’s as if you have no control over your body anymore,’ he says.
The revolutionary Punjabi poet Pash, who was gunned down by Khalistani militants in the 1980s, described the withdrawal woes of an opium addict thus:
When the addict forsakes opium
He rushes into the pond at midnight
His flesh remains scorched even in the well
For defecation each moment he runs
Only the foul smell of dead lion to bedevil him
The addict resorts to smoking
Momentary breathing to the dead lion to provide
But how can the dead lion revive
When the addict has forsaken opium
Fresh from a dose of bhukki, Jora isn’t a ‘dead lion’—the Sikh metaphor for an emasculated man. But it’s not as if he hasn’t tried to quit bhukki. ‘In the last fifteen years I’ve been taking it, I’ve admitted myself twice to the nashamukti kendra (deaddiction centre). But I couldn’t quit. It’s too difficult. Maybe I didn’t have the necessary willpower. I don’t know. But no one in India can help me now. I’ll have to go straight to America for treatment,’ he says with a sardonic laugh.
It’s telling that Jora has his eyes set westward even for rehab, given that Punjab has one of the highest emigration rates in India. The state has a long history of migration, both voluntary and involuntary, the former prompted by the comforts of the West and the latter by the horrors of Partition. As a result, the Punjabi diaspora is widespread. Jora and Jagdev themselves have a couple of cousins in Europe. One grows olives in Greece and the other is a dairy worker in Italy. Jagdev goes on to tell me that some houses in Punjab have eagle-shaped water tanks on their roofs—status symbols that indicate someone in the house has flown the coop, settled abroad. Interestingly, in North America, as in India, the Sikhs have become a dominant presence in trucking. I wonder if their long tryst with migration has something to do with why Punjabis took to driving trucks with such enthusiasm, because what is trucking, but a form of constant displacement.
‘You are actually supposed to take bhukki only twice a day,’ says Jora. ‘Once after lunch, and once after dinner. Gaon mein aise hi lete the (That’s how they used to take it in our village). Taken in a regulated manner, it is harmless and in fact, beneficial. I have brought this upon myself. I exceeded my limits. All those long journeys, and no one to tell you to stop.’
Jora exemplifies how the largely measured opium users of Punjab a century ago—as gleaned from multiple accounts in the Royal Commission’s report—are giving way to indiscriminately heavy users. Once the drug of choice for those accustomed to hard labour, Punjab’s prosperity in the wake of the Green Revolution has ensured it is now a nasha of leisure.
It’s the same story as the rest of the world—the disintegration of social structures and norms, traditional wisdom giving way to a culture of reckless consumerism, where the aspirational anthem of Dil Maange More (The Heart Demands More) is as applicable to Pepsi as it is to bhukki.
In any case, bhukki is low down the totem pole of Punjab’s worries. Jagdev, whose only vice includes the odd bottle of whisky and chewing tobacco, tells me they had a younger brother who died after overdosing on chitta—Punjabi for white, the colour of heroin, of misery and death.
‘We don’t talk much about him. He injected himself to death. His addiction was so severe that even his private parts were not spared in the search of injectable veins,’ he says. ‘Kuch nahi ho sakta tha (Nothing could have been done),’ he adds after a moment, as if consoling himself.
I’m devastated. To think that these genial brothers have been through so much pain and loss. Jora doesn’t say anything. His haunted eyes are fixed on the road determinedly. I think about the thousands of families in Punjab that have been destroyed by the blight of drug abuse among the youth. An entire generation decimated. ‘The situation is really bad. Chitta, goliyan sab khule-aam milta hai (Heroin, capsules everything is available openly). It’s as if it is a medicine. You just have to go to the pharmacist.’
While the bhukki is from Rajasthan, most of the chitta is of Afghan origin, smuggled across the border from Pakistan, courtesy Punjab’s unfortunate location abutting the Golden Crescent, a region spanning Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran that produces most of the world’s illicit opium.
Chitta is a newfangled monster to ravage Punjabi soil. What’s even more alarming is the fact that the definition of chitta is no longer restricted to heroin but has expanded to include a deadly cocktail of various cheap synthetic drugs. While traditional intoxicants like bhukki continue to enjoy relative, if declining, social acceptance, it is chitta that has wrought havoc across Punjab, engendering a legion of desperate, often dangerous addicts, especially in its border districts. Even Captain Amarinder Singh, the current chief minister of Punjab, was forced to clarify during his election campaign, that when he promised to eliminate drugs within four weeks of coming to power, he meant chitta and not traditional intoxicants like bhukki, lest he alienate too many potential voters.
While the chitta doused their brother’s spirit, and eventually, his life, the bhukki claimed another victim in Jora’s marriage. His wife left him within two years of marriage when she discovered the shocking e
xtent of his addiction. He has now given up on the thought of fathering children, and carries out a clandestine affair with a married woman from a neighbouring village who occasionally visits his rented accommodation in Sirhind.
We are nearing the Rajasthan–Haryana border now. The terrain is an unremitting dull brown, and the wind that rushes in through the windows of the truck could well have been the hot breath of the devil. Jora points out the rusting wreckage of impounded trucks crowding a yard by the highway.
‘I can tell you most of them were abandoned by drivers transporting bhukki in their truck from Rajasthan to Punjab, who fled when confronted by RTO or police officials, and never returned to escape prosecution. Smuggling of bhukki is common in this region,’ he says.
Jora decides it’s time for a break. We stop for a cup of tea at a shack by the road. As I dip my hands in one of those ubiquitous glass containers to gather some loose biscuits for us, Jora nudges my shoulder and nods in the direction of a driver casually borrowing a plastic tumbler of water from the shack owner to facilitate his dose of bhukki. It is a quick, inconspicuous affair, and when he’s done, he flashes us a conspiratorial grin and strides towards his truck, scratching his back all the way.
I had noticed Jora too scratching his back periodically, but I had dismissed it as an idiosyncrasy particular to him. When I ask Jora, he confesses that the giveaway trait of an opium addict is the uncontrollable urge to scratch. One of the important reasons why Jora takes opium, or at least that is how he rationalizes his impulse, is that the scratching is the best possible antidote to drowsiness and allows him to keep inhuman hours on the road.
A couple of hours have passed since Jora’s last dose, so when we get back in the truck, it is time for Jora’s ritual to be reenacted. He extracts the bhukki packet from its secret compartment in the dashboard. ‘Will you have some?’ he inquires. After weighing the idea briefly, and considering the bhukki’s mild effects last time, I decide it’s better if I go all the way. He hands me the visiting card. Another scoop. Another gulp of water. Maybe second time’s the charm. And sure enough, its effects are more discernible this time.
An hour passes, maybe, I can’t really say, but it is getting dark. There is silence in the truck, and I realize with a jolt that my attention has been transfixed on the white lines painted on the middle of the highway for quite some time. The train of my space-time continuum seems to have shifted to narrow-gauge. The scope of my mind and body has narrowed to a sliver, and my peripheral vision is now cloudy emptiness.
I can imagine why Jora finds bhukki useful—and ultimately indispensable—in driving trucks. His body, beaten into submission by the opium, operates at the resonant frequency, immune to heat, sleep, hunger and other biological distractions. His conscious mind is free to wander, while his subconscious mind is in the throes of highway hypnosis, going through the mechanical motions with practiced ease, spellbound by some unknowable spectre on the road.
Add to that the pronounced sense of time contraction opium induces, and I finally understand what the popular singer Chamkila meant when he paid tribute to the afeemkhor Punjabi trucker with these memorable lines, ‘Jandi goli afeem di andar. Jandi goli afeem di andar. Goli andar. Yaar Jalandhar!’—Once the pellet of opium goes… The pellet goes in. Your friend’s already reached Jalandhar!
Death on Wheels
The dhaba Jora wheels his truck into isn’t his usual dinner haunt. I gather so much from the absence of trucks in the parking lot. Instead, it is packed with SUVs, hatchbacks and sedans whose respectable occupants have evidently descended on this ‘vegetarian family dhaba’. I wonder why Jora has brought us here. It’s likely the hefty bill here will exceed Jora and Jagdev’s daily allowance of Rs 250. Little do I realize that I’m about to receive my first taste of Punjabi hospitality.
At first, I feel odd in the gentrified atmosphere of the restaurant. This isn’t what I expected when I set out with truckers. Here I am, caked in dust and sweat, a little buzzed on bhukki, and there are children blithely running around me, uncles whose default voice setting is booming, and aunties in saris so gaudy they’d give Jora’s truck a hard time. I feel cheated, somehow, like I have travelled a thousand kilometres in a truck only to come back to the world I left behind. But once the dhaba’s taut charpoys have yielded under the combined force of our posteriors, it doesn’t take long for glasses of lassi to materialize, and my awkwardness to dissolve in its sweet glory.
Jora barks out an order for two paneer subjis and tandoori rotis to a uniformed waiter. He eyes our disheveled appearance suspiciously, his furrowed forehead and puckered brow indicating that we don’t belong here. But Jora’s determined to have a good time. As we wait for the subji to arrive, Jora and I step out into the yard for a smoke, where he amuses himself by mock-stuffing his cigarette into the mouth of a giant ornamental monkey. He strikes a goofy pose with an impish grin on his face, and asks me to take his picture.
When the subji arrives, we apportion it between us equally. This certainly isn’t something Jora has on an everyday basis, I think to myself, pinching the subji in between my roti: what with the cashews floating in the gravy like icebergs. This is rich stuff. My suspicion is confirmed when the bill arrives: over Rs 500. Jora doesn’t let me pay. Even as I’m reaching into my pocket, he snatches the bill from my hands with an uncharacteristically fierce glint in his eye. I don’t protest too much. I’m afraid he’ll get offended. Nonetheless, this has to be a rare treat for Jora and Jagdev, considering the average daily expenditure of a truck driver on food is around Rs 100.
I ask Jora why he chose this dhaba and then didn’t even let me pay. I get the same answer as with Shyam and Rajinder: ‘Aap hamare mehmaan hain (You are our guest).’ What have I done to deserve such generosity, I wonder. Nothing at all. Is it the innate goodness of men like Jora? Is it the centuries of my accumulated privilege that somehow manifests through time and space? Or is it the bond between a writer and his subject, the observer and the observed, which makes Jora want to appear in a favourable light? I guess I’ll never really know.
While Jora is conscious of his status as a truck driver, he’s also eager to prove that he doesn’t particularly lack for anything, that he’s relatively well-to-do, an honourable and respectable man. He tells me he is the proud owner of a Hyundai Accent, the envy of his haramkhor relatives who abandoned him when he needed them the most. I am surprised. I certainly didn’t expect a truck driver to own an Accent.
We get back to the truck. Jora cautiously reverses the vehicle on to the highway, guided by Jagdev who hangs out of the truck, his head turned backwards, chanting, ‘Jaane de, jaane de, jaane de (Go on, go on, go on),’ his eyes scanning for unwitting pedestrians aka potential roadkill. Jora steers the truck on to the highway and presses the accelerator.
It feels wonderful to be back on the road—the wind blowing in my face, the country rushing past, all a delightful blur, the high perch, a view of India fit for kings, who in their time similarly travelled on elephants just to be a little closer to heaven. For my companions, of course, it’s just another day on the road, for the road to heaven is the one they’re on. Jora lights a post-lunch cigarette.
I am expecting us to stick to the NH8 and reach Chandigarh via Delhi, but Jora unexpectedly veers off the highway after some time. He tells me he wants to avoid the Rajasthan–Haryana border checkpost. He instead prefers sticking to the kacchi sadak—the unpaved roads—which are less rigorously policed, or more likely, not policed at all. His truck is severely overloaded, you see, and Jora also has around a kilo of bhukki—a third of his monthly consumption—which he bought on the way near Kota. While he stashes it in a secret compartment, it would likely be discovered in a thorough search. But it wouldn’t even come to that, since a cursory glance of his truck would reveal extreme overloading to the inspecting officials.
Jora doesn’t own the truck. It’s the property of an NRI Jatt Sikh who runs petrol pumps in the US and visits Punjab once a year. He is aware of Jo
ra’s opium addiction and considerately allows him to ply on the Rajasthan–Punjab route, which enables Jora to procure bhukki at regular intervals. But this consideration isn’t without a quid pro quo.
Since Jora is adept at navigating the rural roads of Haryana and avoiding tax officials, the owner overloads the truck with impunity, with Jora getting to pocket the money saved from the covetous hands of policemen, toll booth attendants and RTO officials, which supplements his meagre salary of Rs 7000. A classic win-win situation, the loser, of course, being the government.
‘In any case, the money I save will probably never even reach the government. Sab kha jaate hain saale (These officials pocket everything).’ So by cultivating a network of informants in RTO offices, Jora has turned the monotonous and dangerous task of driving trucks into an enterprising venture, beating a grasping state at its own game. That’s also probably how he was able to buy a Hyundai Accent on a trucker’s salary, I muse.
Not that a lone wolf like Jora particularly cares for savings. He’s the definition of a dildaar (large-hearted) trucker. He has no dependents. From what he says, he’s just waiting for the end, that final flash. So what drives him to save costs and cut corners, is his desperate need to fund his addictions. Three kilograms of bhukki means a monthly expenditure of six thousand. Ditto for his daily quota of four cigarette packets. While he wouldn’t prefer it, he can still make do without the cigarettes. The bhukki, however, is indispensable. Without the money to buy it, he will end up either steeped in debt, or admitted to a rehab facility, which hasn’t yielded favourable results in the past. It’s as if Jora has stepped on to the high road, and his brakes have failed.
The highway is now far behind us, and gone are the bright lights of civilization. I feel unmoored without the navigational aids and dead-certainty of the brightly lit highway. We are shrouded in darkness and plowing through, I know not where. The truck’s headlights are like a kinetic sun casting its glow on primordial earth. The narrow road, if it can be called one, is unpaved. I imagine one night of heavy rain will suffice to wash it all away. I’m impressed by how skillfully Jora minimizes the impact of some of the more nasty craters, as I grab the back of his seat for support.
Truck de India! Page 7
