Truck de India!: A Hitchhiker's Guide to Hindustan by Rajat Ubhaykar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Gaddi jaandi ae chhalanga mardi
Mainu yaad aaye mere yaar di”

(The truck goes hopping
And I miss my beloved)

The one image that I have always associated with the thought of truck/ goodscarrier on Indian roads is a boisterous Punjabi driver driving the truck in abandon while singing this song in full throttle. Part of the reason lies in my spending my early childhood years in Punjab and part in being enamoured by the bitter sweet song which is as much about love as it is about lamenting the distance between lovers.

But apart from this sweet image, one other image that has been deeply ingrained in my mind about these trucks is that of a formidable giant body on wheels which must never ever be overtaken on a highway.

This was one of the first lessons I was given while learning to drive – Don’t ever overtake a Truck or a Bus (especially Haryana Roadways) on a road. So while I have adhered to this rule most of my life, sometimes I have indulged in the guilty pleasure of overtaking the giant on a highway, more specifically whenever I found it trudging painfully slow, but also, because it gives an exhilaration to beat the king of the road on road itself.

But other than this, the sight of a truck never evoked much contemplation. That was not until I came across Truck De India.

Really, I thought? A book on trucks? WOW.

And then I read the subtitle – “A hitchhiker’s guide to Hindustan”

In the prologue of the book, the author narrates the incident which kind of seeded the idea of discovering the country through road:

“Staring outside the window on that trip, the wind tousling my unruly hair, I remember being struck by a sort of epiphany, that India is bigger than the boundaries of my imagination, or anyone’s, for that matter. You didn’t have to go the scale of the cosmos to imagine something vast – India was enough.”

That the author chose Trucks to hitchhike to undertake the journey was at first kind of bewildering to think. But then as I read on, I realised what better way to discover a country if not through the eyes of one of the most vulnerable yet surprisingly one of the most underrated and suspected class in the workforce of the unorganised sector which forms the backbone of logistics across the country.

Another reason might be the mysterious air that hovers around the sight of a truck on a highway. It seems to be destined for discovering vistas unknown to commoners like us and so the experience of its riders may seem much richer than that gained through journeys undertaken by conventional means.

Rajat starts the journey from Mumbai, moving all the way upto Kashmir and then Far East to Nagaland before finally reaching Kanyakumari in the South. A journey across the country hitchhiking thus with truck drivers and their helpers, gives him a first-hand experience of the many tribulations and dangers that they go through while transferring goods which we don’t even give a single thought while purchasing.

What I find immensely likable about his hitchhiking with truck drivers is that he enters their world when taken kindly in and maintains a respectful distance while asking questions about their lives, their experiences. He finds that apart from paying “taxes” on road to braving harsh weathers, the threat of insurgents or evading highway robbers, the drivers also spend long periods away from family only to save a couple of thousands more. But none of the problems that they face make them hostile while talking about them with a total stranger. In fact, as opposed to the commonly held notion, he finds most of them very friendly and warm.

“Aap humare mehmaan hain” (you are our guest) How else can one define the gesture of paying for a stranger’s meal when even a single penny counts? Or sharing the already cramped space for two to sleep with someone they have barely met? Does what hold them together, just a common journey from one destination to next? Or is it the inherent human desire for the need to be understood, respected and treated kindly by fellow beings? In the journey of life each of us has chosen a path most suitable circumstantially and so a comparison materialistically is not only naïve but also degrading.

While on his journey to initially discover the unseen India, Rajat discovers what really counts in the transit which characterises life. We are fortunate that he has penned his experience in the form of a book for otherwise we might never know what really goes on in the life of the people who spend most of their lives behind wheels, away from their loved ones, to ferry the goods and materials which not only run our country’s economy but also bring comfort to the lives of millions of strangers.

I would recommend this book to everyone who wishes to explore how truckers brave the uncertainties of highways to earn their livelihoods and how their incomes are dependent on circumstances they come across.


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