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!