Udta Punjab

“The boarding for Indigo Airlines Flight No. 6E-098 has started. Please board the same from Gate Numbers 6 & 7”  - Planning my holiday schedule and murmuring (Good Riddance J I will now have 10 days at leisure), I stood in the queue for my flight from Pune to New Delhi. I could not believe that I had spent four months away from my home.

I came to Pune for my first job in TCS and started staying in Magarpatta City. The place was something like a dream place for a person who has never left Punjab in his life of 21 years. I befriended new people from different areas of India and started feeling upright in the new city gradually. It felt great at the starting of the job as it was a total new experience for me. Big buildings, planned areas, maintained parks & lawns, planned market place and many other things which I had never experienced before and they gave me a thrill every time I visited them.

But the only thing I missed were the kind of people we had back there in Punjab. In Pune, we didn’t even know our neighbors unlike Punjab where neighbors were family. This felt strange and this feeling kept on growing until I booked my flight to home on Diwali. The excitement to go home started one month ago on the day of booking and it led to an evening of celebrations.

Finally, the day of my flight had come and super excited, I left for Airport 3 hours prior to my flight timing although the airport was just 30 minutes away. There was a feeling of contentment in my heart when I entered the Airport with “Sweet Home Alabama” playing in my iPod which gave me goosebumps. After completing all the formalities at the Airport I was eagerly waiting for my boarding announcement when suddenly a hand from behind tapped my shoulder. Removing my earphones, I turned towards my back and saw my college friend Fateh standing in front of me who also hailed from my hometown. “Damn! So good to see you. I won’t be bored in my journey”, I said to him.

Walking down the memory lane, we talked about our good old college days, the time we had in hostel and about many other things. We stopped talking only when our plane finally landed at Delhi Airport. “Dude! Can’t believe that 2 hours have passed” Fateh said. “yeah bro!, had an amazing time. Anyways how are you going home”! I asked. “I have already arranged a taxi to home” replied Fateh. So I decided to tag along with him for my onward journey back home and we agreed to split the fare of the taxi.

It was nearly 9 PM when we boarded the taxi at the Airport. The driver kulwinder - seemed an experienced driver until 5 minutes later when he said “sir! I don’t know the way out from here”. Bad news was that both of our phones were on the edge of getting switched off and there was no car charger. Fateh switched on google maps to get an estimate of the route and quickly took some screenshots. It asked us to exit Delhi border via Airport – Old Delhi – Kashmere Gate – Ring Road – Karnal Bye Pass and we followed the same.

It was 10 Pm already and we were stuck somewhere in Old Delhi. We were totally lost as no one amongst us knew Delhi roads. We started asking people for the way when suddenly Kulwinder started shouting and abusing at the cars in front of us. He said that he was totally pissed off with the Delhi traffic as he had never seen this kind of traffic anywhere. We asked him to have patience and keep driving as it would be very tough for us if he would get frustrated.

Slacking in between the Delhi roads we finally reached Karnal bye pass at around midnight. All 3 were very hungry and decided to stop at Sukhdev Dhaba  - Murthal and relish some awesome food. Post Karnal bye pass, our car which was moving at snail’s pace from past 3 hours started roaring on the highway which gave us a sense of relaxation and brought a smile on kulwinder’s face. We again started conversing about our college lifes when in no time the car stopped and to our surprise we were at Sukhdev Dhaba.

Our hunger pangs increased exponentially as soon as we ordered our favorite Dal Makhani and Tandoori Paranthas. We were too patient in Delhi’s traffic but it was getting very difficult to wait for the food. Finally we had those amazing paranthas which gave us a feeling of fulfillment. “yumm! Man I missed this food in Pune the most. I can die for it” fateh said licking his fingers and ordering another round of paranthas. As we were sitting in open, I realized that weather of Pune is far better than Delhi, Haryana or Punjab. We get cool breeze day & night in Pune but sitting there I couldn’t see even a single leaf moving on the tree. Meanwhile we charged our phones in the dhaba too.

Our tummies were full and we sat in the car smiling and planning to take a nap. It was already 1:30 am and we were expected to reach home by 4 30 am. We gave Kulwinder some cash to give toll tax and asked him let us sleep without any disturbance. We would have hardly travelled for another 15 minutes when I peeked into the rear view mirror by chance and to my horror, I saw Kulwinder eyes we closed and it seemed that he was sleeping.

I immediately shouted “Oye” to which he suddenly woke up started moving his hands on steering wheel saying sorry again and again. Fateh jumped on his seat with a surprise on his face and then I said “his eyes were closed” and then asked Kulwinder whether he was sleeping. “I haven’t slept from last night, I must have dozed off as I just had food” replied Kulwinder.

Fateh asked him to stop the car and stretch himself and gave him some chewing gums so that he becomes active. Kulwinder immediately replied “Chewing gum won’t do any good sir! I need something else”.  He said that making drinking signs with his hands. Shocked, we asked why would he need a drink to drive, he said “Not drink sir!I need more than that.” Upon asking what exactly he needed, his reply stunned us. He said he needed “Phukki” for the drive else it will be very difficult for him to drive. Phukki is a form of drug like ganja.

Fateh got furious and asked him to stop the car immediately. He started bashing him as soon as we got down from the car. He called the Taxi owner immediately and to our dismay no one answered. Soon his bashing turned into convincing as we were stuck with this smacky driver. We asked him to keep driving slowly and try to buy phukki from his sources. All this episode took us 1 hour and we must have travelled 30 kms only.

Both of us were trying to stay awake to ensure that Kulwinder doesn’t sleep while driving. We kept on talking to him so as to keep the momentum of the car alive. He started telling his story about phukki addiction and its side effects. He told us how maximum of his village’s youth fell for the addiction to phukki and many of his friends have sold their ancestral properties to cope up with the costs of addiction. Many of his friends have also lost their lives and their families have been ruined due to it. It was strange to know that despite knowing all the side effects it was not possible for him to leave the addiction. Listening to his story it made me feel like he was a character from the Bollywood movie “UDTA PUNJAB”.

He was telling us about the addiction case of his friend when suddenly he applied brakes and got down at a dhaba near Karnal. It was pitch dark and no one was could be seen. He came back after 5 minutes and told us that it was not available at that dhaba and continued his story. He told us how his friend started committing crimes and was killed in an encounter. It was an eye opener story for both of us as we didn’t know that the condition was so worse in Punjab.

He stopped again at a dhaba near Shahbad and again came back empty handed saying that “there is no phukki available as there are elections tomorrow and security is very tight”. We got so relaxed to hear that but immediately realized that we were stranded on a highway with an addict behind the wheels in the dead of the night. ing with him but didn’t get any replies. We even asked him to sit at the back seat and let any of us drive the car but he seemed to be frustrated and kept on driving without speaking a word.

I have seen in movies how addicts react to unavailability of their needed drug but I was experiencing it for the first time and it scared the hell out of me. He was sitting fixed in one posture, flickering his fingers rapidly, not blinking his eyes and not replying to any of our requests to stop the car. It seemed he was in some other world. We tried to contact our friends/ family back home and the Taxi owner but no one picked our calls at that point in the night.

We were about to reach Ambala when I saw that the speed of the car was increasing and there was a turn ahead. It looked like he had lost his senses and was just sitting at the driving seat blindly without actually driving the car. At the spur of the moment, Fateh jumped and held Kulwinder from his back and I jumped on the front seat and turned the steering. Thankfully kulwinder didn’t resist and due to fateh’s pull he picked his foot from accelerator which gave me an opportunity to pull the hand brakes. The car got out of control and started skidding on the road. Screeching noise from tyres started coming as our car was rotating while skidding on the road.

It was an eternity of horror for us but I think the whole episode must have taken only 1 minute. Thankfully, we escaped with minor injuries and when we got out the car we saw people running towards us and traffic behind us (mostly buses and trucks) had to halt. In sometime police had come and asked us to move our car to the side of the road.

Instead of helping us to calm down, Police started asking questions like is the driver drunk?? Why do you travel with such drivers??  and didn’t even care about the mental trauma we had. We told the police that our driver slept while driving and in need of the hour we had to do all this. We lied to save our time and to save Kulwinder. They let us go after nearly an hour and it was already 5 in the morning. Both of us were very tired and frustrated but looking at Kulwinder, who gave no reaction to the incident I felt miserable.

We reached the taxi stand in our hometown at around 6 in the morning where our friend Sabby was already waiting for us. (He called us on the way after seeing Fateh’s missed calls). We dropped Kulwinder with his car and shifted out luggage to sabby’s car. Both of us were numb in the car and just wanted to relax and forget this night.