My Way, On The Highway... Part 2

After spending a few hours in Yamuna Nagar and a overpowering rush of nostalgia of life in the sleepy mill-town, we left for Delhi.

A few kilometers out of Karnal, we got our first glimpse of the kos minars, medieval milestones that were first made by the 16th-century Afghan Emperor of India, Sher Shah Suri, and later on by Mughal emperors. 

The towers are solid round pillars, around 30 feet in height. They stand on a masonry platform built with bricks and plastered over with lime. Though not very impressive aesthetically, being milestones, they were an important part of communication and travel in the Afghan and Mughal empires. Alongside these towers, serais (roadside inns) were also built for tired and weary travellers.

Kos minars came up extensively in the north - they were extended as far as Peshawar and in the east to Bengal via Kannauj, along the Grand Trunk Road, which is today's National Highway 1. The geographic span makes for nearly three thousand kilometers of Mughal highways, accounting for nearly 1000 kos minars, i.e., 1 every kos or 3 kilometers. Today there are 49 towers in Haryana and 5 around Ludhiana in Punjab, protected by law, as heritage structures.

As dusk was setting in, we reached Murthal. We stopped by at the Haveli, a roadside resort for a bite and cup of tea....

Clean and slick, the Haveli is a great example of India's bustling highway economy....

A relic of the past welcomed us in to the Haveli....

A quick loo break and it was evident how times had changed - swank and spotlessly clean loos...

These were unthinkable of in the past....

Seriously, when you are on the highway, a clean loo is something that is really comforting....

A strapping durbaan, obviously a Punjabi, ushered us in with a well meaning Sat Sri Akal!

How I miss all of this in Mumbai!

The Haveli restaurant was plush and inviting....

But my favourite highway meal of parathas, chhole and maa ki daal wasn't on offer at that hour...

So we had to move outdoors to the food court....

These guys make cardiologists' businesses boom - look at how these big fat aloo tikkis are getting fried....

But this is the real thing, not the anaemic ragda pattice of Mumbai.... urghhh

Ahhh.... pav bhaji....

But this is not match for the yummy ones you get in Mumbai.... I swear I had pav bhaji for dinner every night, for nearly 40 days when I moved into Mumbai 10 years back.... I love them so much!

And after plates of hot aloo tikki and spring rolls, and obviously, a few cups of tea, we were back on road, headed to Delhi.... 

My Way, On The Highway...

It was that time, that time to head back to where I grew up, Yamuna Nagar....

We set out on a foggy winter morning, this January, from Delhi. The fog lifted, thankfully, by the time we were crossing the Delhi-Haryana border.

In no time we were in Haryana - wide open expanse of farmlands, on both sides of National Highway 1, with upcoming developments at regular intervals - motels, restaurants, dhabas, factories and what not....

We stopped by for breakfast at this dhaba called Star Dhaba....

Oh God! The Baristas and the Subways and the Baskin Robbins of the world won't spare us here also...

But for me, dhaba food is all about parathas and makhan!

On the way to Yamuna Nagar, we stopped by at Karnal's National Dairy Research Institute.....

We always used to stop by here to pick up the amazing cheddar cheese they used to make....

That was one of the thrills of my childhood - having NDRI's cheese!

And we headed to the Milk Parlour where NDRI's merchandise is retailed....

The weather was awesome with a biting nip in the air....

And the Sun rays streaming through the canopies of the trees around us and the birds chirping made the atmosphere magical....

How wonderful is my Haryana!

How much I miss the days that I spent here....

Just as we were moving out of NDRI, my FlightRadar24 phone app scanned a few cross-continental flights right above us.... There was a Turkish Airlines Boeing 777 headed to Singapore from Istanbul at flight level 360 - from up there, this place would have looked like paradise.... green, neat and inviting!

We set course for Yamuna Nagar - this is where I spent a large of my childhood and early teens...

We got off the National Highway 1, turned right on too State Highway 7 towards Indri and Ladwa from where we were to get onto State Highway 6 towards Yamuna Nagar....

Just after getting on to State Highway 7, my parents suggested we stop at a basmati miller's factory outlet - I had this rice before and it was pretty good...

The outlet itself was a bit shabby, but who cared as long as the product was good...

White rice, brown rice, fragrant rice - all from my land of milk and honey, Haryana!

All this would travel back with us to our homes in Mumbai, Delhi and Beijing - the sweet aroma of Haryana's basmati will waft around in alien lands!

And we continued on with our journey through the narrow State Highway 7 - with green fields around us on both sides and leisurely pace of village life all around us, it was as though I was transported back in time to days when I used to travel between Chandigarh and Yamuna Nagar or between Delhi and Yamuna Nagar - it did seem that little had changed on these roads.... but a lot had changed in our lives, quite a lot!

Terror in Bombay -- A few unanswered questions.....

Twenty - twenty five years back as a kid, I recall flipping through The Illustrated Weekly, which carried photo feature on the best hotels of the world. The Taj Mahal was there. Papa who saw me flipping through the photo feature described the grandeur of the place to me, as I listened in wonder....

Today the Taj is in shambles. God knows whats happening inside the Oberoi and the Trident. All this is a sad testimony to the lackadaisical attitude of our authorities.
Bombay, a city that has fascinated me for its speed, attitude and iconic structures, is bleeding for the last 45 odd hours....

Are we so ignorant that we didn't know that this could have happened? The incident has opened a Pandora's box of questions that must be answered for the benefit of Indian citizens.

1. 
   
   Why weren't the Taj and the Oberoi-Trident complexes not stormed on Wednesday night / Thursday morning? Why did we wait for 8-9 hours despite the army, navy and NSG being called in? Why are we so soft on terror?


2. 
   
   Quoting a comment on Facebook on these terror attacks, that no matter how much pesticide you use, you surely get a few cockroaches. The key is to brutally and swiftly eliminate these cockroaches. Why are we so slow and casual? We have constantly been attacked, almost an attack a month, for quite long now. Was the government sleeping, all this while?


3. 
   
   I came across an interesting insight on Facebook today which said that India is the only democracy where the top three posts - Prime Minister, Home Minister and President are nominated by a person who herself does not have any mandate from the people! And at least one of these three people are surely ignorant and insensitive to the terror we are seeing, let alone taking any action. Mr. Home Minister has said that we need to show compassion to those involved and these arms and RDX laden guys are brothers gone astray. How stupid and insensitive. How long can we let someone have power without any accountability of any kind? Is there something murky over there?


4. 
   
   Security analysts have for the last 5 years have been talking of a marine threat. What have we done to boost our marine defence and patrol systems?


5. 
   
   What a slap it was on the face of the state government that it took Narendra Modi's visit to the Trident and Oberoi this morning to get Mr. Deshmukh out of his slumber. Where was Mr. Vilas Rao Deshmukh all this while?


6. 
   
   What has India done to curb Islamic militancy in our hinterlands? How long can we ignore this real and genuine threat in the name of secularism?


7. 
   
   As evidenced from the nuclear deal, India now has a strong lobby (both with US megacorps and the administration) in the US. Why can't we leverage on our new found strong relationship with the US and the rest of the Western world to pressurise the Pakistanis to curb terror?


8. 
   
   Why do we want to trade with Pakistan when we know they will stab us? Why did we support the financially bankrupt state of Pakistan in getting support from the IMF?


9. 
   
   Why can't we coerce Pakistan into clamping down on terror by strangling Pakistan economically - disrupt the shipping lines into the Karachi and Gwadar ports?


10. 
    
    Why can't we learn from the Israeli swiftness and brutality in dealing with such matters? Why can't we join hands with them in dealing with Islamic fundamentalists? If not all that, can't we get Israelis to train our commandos and state police forces to deal with these situations? How long can we be so sensitive to a certain vote-bank that we don't co-operate with Israel on these matters?


11. 
    
    Why don't we have a disaster management plan? How can we allow three top cops to travel together, thereby multiplying the risk of losing them all - this is precisely what happened when we lost the top three ATS cops on Wednesday night. Losing three ATS cops on the same night is strange. Is there more than what meets the eye or is it a mere coincidence?


12. 
    
    Last but not the least, I got an interesting text message this morning which went as follows: "The Navy commandos are headed by a Sikh. The Army operatives are headed by a Haryana Jat. NSG has been called in from Delhi. Taj and Oberoi staffers who heroically tried to save guests are mainly Punjabis. Where are Raj's Marathi Manoos?" Relevant I think - if he loves the city so much, if he loves his people so much, where is he? Why haven't we heard from him so far? Why aren't party workers assisting in relief efforts? When I sent this message across to most people on my cell's address book, I got an angry response from one of my contacts saying "we should not talk of all this and we should stand as one today". Surely we have been standing as one and that's why there has been a co-ordinated approach. But my question still remains - where are Raj and his Manoos gangs now? Why don't they help the authorities in hunting out the sleeper cells, instead of targeting North Indians?

Can the readers help me with some answers on these random questions on the terror of the last 45 odd hours?

As we wonder about these questions, we need to resolve to flush out and eliminate these cockroaches. We need to remember that our Motherland, India, is indeed incredible and we'ld better keep it that way. Jan Gana Mana....