Somehow, the sight of the fuel-peddling women makes me feel terribly insecure. It’s a reminder than NH39, my only link to the mainland, to home, could be snapped anytime as per the will of insurgent groups. If the UNC, for instance, decides to intensify its agitation, Imphal could well start experiencing food shortage next, as has happened several times in the past. What would I do then?
I head back to the hotel and order some dal fry and rice in the room, while I still can, and sit back to watch Die Hard on the TV, before the power goes off. I polish off my dinner in the darkness, like Arjuna in the Mahabharata, one of whose wives Chitrangada was said to be Manipuri. Once I’m done, I push the plate under my bed and doze in the darkness, woken up intermittently by the beads of sweat that tickle my forehead. Imphal is way hotter than Kohima.
Late in the night, I’m awoken by a fight in the street below the lodge. The lights in my room are on; the power seems to have returned at some point. I get up to peep through the window. There is a group of five to six men brawling on the street, pulling at each others’ thin baniyans and throwing punches. I head back to sit on my bed. Probably just a drunken brawl, I’m thinking, when the din of excited shouting is silenced by the twang of a bullet shot. Or perhaps a tyre burst, one can never really say.
I hurry to switch off the lights in my room and coil into the foetal position on my bed. There is no point attracting attention in a situation like this. What if that was a bullet? And what if the men decide to round up possible witnesses to whatever happened downstairs? I know no one here. I could easily be ‘disappeared’ and nobody would know where, or care why.
The bullet shot has unnerved me, even though there is silence outside now, or perhaps because there is silence outside. I lie mulling frantic, paranoid thoughts in bed. Have the police taken the men away? Or was it the police who shot them? Is this what it’s like living in a conflict zone? What if they come up? Sleep doesn’t come easily. All through the twisting and turning, one thought dominates my mind-space: Should I return to ‘India’?
After enduring a sleepless, tormented night, the answer is clear. The next day, I book a bus ticket for Guwahati. It’s time to call off my trucking adventure, at least for now. After nearly four months on the road, god knows I miss home. I miss everything about it. I miss the food, I miss my family, I miss the familiar texture of my razai, the reasonable hardness of my bed, but most of all, I miss my bathroom. And after so many nights spent in strange towns, I also miss Mumbai. I miss its bright lights, I miss its autowallahs who only go by meter (bless them!), I miss fearlessly strolling on its streets at midnight, but most of all, I miss lounging in my usual watering hole, munching on chakli and schezwan sauce. It’s time to go home. Never before has the word ‘home’ beckoned me with all those comforting connotations.
Part Three
HIGHWAY ECONOMY
MUMBAI–KANYAKUMARI
One Nation, One Tax, One Tech
I’m off again. A lot has changed in the world of trucking since my hasty retreat from Imphal. There are momentous reforms afoot—the Goods and Service Tax (GST) has been inaugurated in a historic midnight session of Parliament just four months ago. India is finally governed by the principle of One Nation One Tax, one integrated system for collecting and distributing indirect tax among states and the central government.
What this means for truckers, who have borne the physical brunt of India’s fragmented tax administration so far, is that they won’t have to wait for hours in serpentine queues at state border check-posts anymore. In theory, GST should mean the life of the truckers I had met in Udaipur, who had been systematically extorted by the officials at the Rajasthan–MP border, should have eased considerably.
But this time, I’m bound for lands south of Mumbai, to realms Dravidian. As I hug my backpack in a crowded local train, on my way to a commission agent’s office in the northern suburb of Vasai, a current of uncertainty and anxiety courses through my body, upsetting my balance momentarily. A chilly breeze relieves the heat emanating from the bodies encircling me. It’s winter— Christmas Eve, at that—and I’m going to Hyderabad in a truck.
My journey of seven hundred kilometres begins in a cramped office which doubles as a warehouse, crowded with topless mathadi workers, all of whom seem to be in the possession of compact, muscular paunches and a perennial smile on their lips. They’ve formed a relay chain spanning the narrow passageway leading up to a truck, and are passing sacks of cement to each other with consummate efficiency.
It’s difficult to miss the mathadis in any godown in the Mumbai–Pune area. They are head-loaders—matha meaning head—with a state-backed monopoly on the loading of goods in Maharashtra. This gives the mathadi unions a government-sanctioned right to extort money from businessmen, and even recent migrants to cities like Pune who have committed the inadvertent mistake of using the services of non-mathadi loaders.
Each worker has a mathadi medallion, a sought after item that sells for as much as five lakh rupees in the open market, as workers in Bhiwandi had told me on my last trip, and then proceeded to complain about how workers from UP and Bihar—bhaiyyas— were undercutting them by agreeing to work for half their rate.
The mathadis are an apt example of how well-meaning unions meant to protect workers’ interests sometimes morph into politicized and criminalized pressure groups. Today, fifty years after the law creating mathadi boards was enacted, it is common knowledge that the higher ranks of many mathadi boards—there are thirty-six in all—have been infiltrated by politically connected goons known to extort money from businessmen, threatening to stall work if they don’t pay up.
As one police officer puts it in a newspaper report, ‘Several dreaded criminals on police records run many such unions… Many of the so-called union leaders travel in luxury cars and have bought plush properties. Only the real workers suffer in such a scenario. Political parties support these unions as the goons have hold over certain areas and can get votes from the labourers.’
I stand against the wall, trying not to get in the way of the heaving loaders, none of whom betray any trace of criminality. I overhear one of them say to another, ‘Lavkar gaadi bharuya aai zhavali, kashala tension ghetos (Let’s load the truck quickly. Why are you worrying about it),’ as he disrupts the relay chain to dip a steel ladle into a blue plastic drum for a sip of water.
The only thing official about this office is a table and chair which occupy one corner, over which lords Vishnu, the commission agent’s assistant. Today, Vishnu is busy handing out paperwork and cash to departing truck drivers, pausing only to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief and to answer the ringing telephone.
At this point, the driver who’s supposed to take me along arrives. Vishnu introduces us to each other. ‘Mastaan,’ the driver says. He shakes my hand, and appraises me warily. I do the same. I find that Mastaan is a well-built twenty-three-year-old, with a neatly trimmed moustache, a good-natured face, and earnest eyes that bear traces of suspicion today, probably reflecting the question that’s weighing on his mind: is it safe for me to take this man?
‘Where are you from?’ he asks me, probably as a way of ascertaining the answer.
‘I’ve lived most of my life in Mumbai, but my roots are in Karnataka.’
‘Oh you’re from Karnataka?’ he says, instantly becoming more relaxed. ‘I’m from Bidar. You must know about it, right? Because whenever I tell people Bidar, they ask—“Bihar?”’ He gives me a wry smile.
‘In fact, that’s where I’m headed right now. I’m planning to spend some time at home since it’s on the way. I’ll drop you on the highway near Basavakalyan, around two hundred kilometres before Hyderabad. Chalega?’
‘Of course. Whatever’s convenient for you.’
Vishnu hands Mastaan some cash, and two stashes of documents separately. He wags a finger at Mastaan, ‘Don’t mix the two sets. This one’s for the rasta, and the other, you don’t show to anyone. Anyone! Got it?’
Mastaan nods absent
ly and starts counting the notes with an intensity that makes it clear to me—a neat bundle of small change is the biggest weapon in a trucker’s arsenal. I don’t disturb him. Once he’s done counting, he explains that smaller change means you have the option of paying off policemen what they actually deserve.
‘But notes often turn out to be torn,’ he complains, as we step out of the office. ‘That’s why I was checking.’
We walk towards his truck parked outside. I ask him the deal about the secret papers.
‘We call them underground papers. The common wisdom is that even if the police takes you in for whatever reason, you’re supposed to ensure they don’t see it.’ Clearly, tax evasion is serious business, and rampant as ever even under the new GST regime.
We climb into the truck. It’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to perform that bit of amateur acrobatics. It feels great to be back inside. The roomy cabin. The high perch. The heady anticipation of the journey ahead. None of it has lost its charm. Inside, I find that Mastaan is not alone. Guru, his trucking partner, is also coming with us.
Guru is only twenty-five, but his bushy moustache and perennially perturbed expression makes him look much older. As does the multi-coloured chain slung along his neck, a marker of advancing middle age that’s more common among Gujarati businessmen in Mumbai.
I notice their truck is different from the ones I’ve traveled in so far, with a sort of bunk bed system, wherein one driver sleeps in the alcove above, while the other drives.
‘In the night, I’ll sleep up. You sleep down here. Okay?’ says Mastaan. ‘You’ll be more comfortable that way. Because if the driver suddenly applies the brakes in the night, you will fall down in your sleep.’
‘Whatever you say. You know best.’
I find out our truck is loaded with parcel maal from a courier company, whose office is on the floor above the warehouse.
‘Is the truck overloaded?’
‘Not at all. Nine tonnes capacity, nine tonnes maal,’ says Guru. ‘Things have changed. There’s checking at the border now. You’ll see…’
It’s eight o’clock by the time we set out. Mastaan releases the handbrake, which hisses like a gas leak. Eight o’clock. It’s not an auspicious hour to begin our journey. Mumbai’s roads are brimming with peak-hour traffic. But at least, there’s music to distract me from the dust and pollution. Kannada film songs with EDM beats play on their stereo.
The route we take is one I’ve never been on, in spite of having lived in Mumbai most of my life. Going by the abundance of trucks, it seems to be an alternate route used by heavy vehicles that are not allowed entry into the city during peak hours. Mastaan explains that there’s a ‘no-entry’ for heavy vehicles at Ghodbunder. And considering this is Mumbai, a city quick to whiff out the scent of money, there are hawkers on this route, holding out garlands of gutka at strategic choke points, straining to catch the attention of truck drivers. Mastaan holds out the garland of gutka already with him and indicates he doesn’t need more. Between the two of them, he tells me they consume twelve packets of gutka a day.
Unlike most of the truckers I had met in my last trip, Mastaan and Guru don’t seem to operate according to the whims of their seth. ‘Andhra, Karnataka and Maharashtra drivers don’t take no shit from their bosses. They will leave their job if they are hassled too much. Yahan ka truck driver apna malik hai, kisi se nahi darta aur kisi ki nahi sunta (The drivers in these areas are their own bosses. They are neither scared of anyone nor do they listen to anyone).’
And I can see the difference. Mastaan and Guru seem to be relatively well-off. Both of them have midrange Samsung smartphones, compared to my garden variety Xiaomi. I’m amused at this reversal of pecuniary roles. They tell me they’ve bought the phones mainly because of WhatsApp, which they use to send photos of the bill and the delivered maal to their seth. But of course, there’s more to it.
Guru is such an avid WhatsApp user that his phone storage has filled up long ago, flooded with videos and photos that he has to constantly delete. Mastaan, on the other hand, is hooked to a game called HarvestLand on Facebook. He asks me my full name and sends me a friend request at the next signal. I accept it promptly.
It’s a world of change from last time, when almost all truckers I met had feature phones and seemed to inhabit another era technologically. But today, as my newly minted ‘friend’ Mastaan takes advantage of a traffic jam to gaze fondly at his phone wallpaper—his daughter’s photo—and as Guru squints into his smartphone lying on his back, they appear to me as digital equals. Millennial drivers. Our lives may be vastly different but at least we are united in our susceptibility to the forces of technological determinism; to the dopamine rush of checking up on that red hot notification.
‘What’s the fun in staying up and driving all night? I would rather get a good night’s sleep in my house,’ replies Mastaan, when I make the mistake of asking him if he enjoys his job. But driving is all he knows. Both Mastaan and Guru are drivers by trade. Their fathers, both deceased, were truck and bus drivers, respectively. But it was Mastaan’s maamu (uncle) who taught him how to drive. ‘He was my ustad,’ says Mastaan. ‘He passed away two years ago in an accident.’
Over half the households in their village in Bidar district have a driver in the family. ‘If you come to our village, you will find more trucks parked than bikes or cars,’ says Mastaan. A trucker village. That wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I ask him if he would be open to taking me along. He declines. ‘We have mothers and sisters at home, you see. Can’t take a stranger along just like that,’ he explains with a note of apology.
I’m puzzled at first, beset by self-doubt. Do I look like a threat to women? But on further thought, I realize his reluctance may be because it’s forbidden for women in conservative Muslim households to show themselves to strangers.
I ask Mastaan if he’s married. ‘Yes. I was just twenty when I got married. My mother was not keeping well then. Father had already passed away ten years back, so there was no one to take care of her. That was when I decided to get married, so my wife could look after her.’
Was the marriage love or arranged? ‘Love,’ he says. ‘Or arranged. I don’t know what to call it. I fell in love with my aunt’s daughter, you see, and since it was within the family, everyone agreed. My older brother is still unmarried, but even he told me to go ahead. Tu kar shaadi. Main nahi karta (You get married. I don’t want to).’
Guru on the other hand is still unmarried. ‘He’s a truck driver na. So no girl is ready to get married to him,’ Mastaan chides him. Guru brushes away his jibe. ‘Who wants to get married anyway? Marriage is ghulami (slavery).’
The two of them have been partners for over two years now, during the course of which they’ve driven all around South India. But their preferred state is Kerala. ‘You don’t need to worry about thieves or the police there,’ says Mastaan. ‘In fact, the police there is so honest that if you enter a no-entry by mistake, they will point you to the alternate route. Elsewhere, they will just demand bribes the moment they see you.’
How much of India have they seen apart from their driving, I ask them. Both Mastaan and Guru have been to neighbouring Gulbarga, to see the Banda Nawaz dargah and the Ayyappa temple respectively. Mastaan has also been on a pilgrimage to Ajmer with his family to visit the dargah there, a lifelong dream of his father, and to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. But when he went to the Taj, he says he was shooed away by the guards on account of some important ‘shooting’ going on inside. ‘I only got to see it from afar.’ His account leaves me with the thought: is this the degrading experience of an average Indian? Forever subordinate to some higher power, even while trying to catch a glimpse of one of India’s wonders?
Guru, on the other hand, hasn’t been around much. He likes it that way. ‘The village is a great place to live. Fresh air, clean water, family. It’s got everything I like. Cities are only good for visiting now and then,’ he says. ‘As a young boy, I always wanted to visit
Bambai and catch a glimpse of some film-star, but now that I’ve been there, I’m just sick of the place. So much traffic, and such terrible roads. It’s the worst place to drive a truck in. In areas like Masjid Bunder, the lanes will be this small,’ he says, bringing his palms close together. ‘And the agent will say—ghusao, jaayega jaayega, ghusao—and in reverse gear at that.’
They seem to dislike Maharashtra in general. ‘Policemen in other states like Karnataka or Andhra will speak in Hindi or English if the driver doesn’t speak the local language. But not in Maharashtra. They will only speak in Marathi even if they know Hindi.’
However, one unintended benefit of this has been that Mastaan has by now picked up a smattering of Marathi, mostly consisting of the choice abuses delivered by the policemen. ‘Ae lavdya. Khali utar,’ he intones, imitating their rude accent to pitch perfection. I break out in laughter.
‘It’s best to not argue with them when they talk to you like that. If you do, they will take Rs 1500 instead of the three hundred they were going to take. You tell me, who will want to live a life like this? Not me. I want a job that gives me respect.’
This routine mauling of dignity is one of the principal reasons why neither of them is intent on remaining a truck driver. Their ambition is to become bus drivers in the government-run Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, a job with regular salary and benefits, and a modicum of respect. Mastaan tells me this stint is merely practice for the driving test they’re going to take in three months.
‘In the KSRTC test, they make you do different vehicle maneuvers—eight figure, L-shape, banana, zero. It’s not easy. But if we pass, our life will be set. We will be inducted as bus drivers within two months.’
Truck de India! Page 17
