After two days in Nagpur, Rohan and I hit the roads again. We were off to Raipur, the new capital of a new state, Chhatisgarh, carved out from Madhya Pradesh. Raipur is a quaint town with some very pretentious institutions that sound grand and resonate with echoes of a colonial history. There’s Coffee House, the hub of all Raipur intellectuals and ineffectuals. Out contact man here was Krishna Das, The Hitavada’s Raipur newseditor.

For a young man fresh out of college, the straight-backed youngster was overly weighed down by an anachronistic formality. He addressed me as sir, and refused to see my amusement. I did not bother to correct him, because we fell to discussing more immediate concerns like how he needed a job with a better paper. Could I help with The Telegraph of Calcutta? They had a correspondent here once, but don’t have one now. I said I’d refer him to my friend at The Telegraph, and realized the somnolent indulgence that made me forget to insist he drop the sir cost me dear.

My friend from The Telegraph called to say, who is this guy.....man.....he’s started his mail saying....’Most respected Rajagopal Sir’...... or something.

Raipur passed in a flash. Sheer mismatch of vices, really. Krishna did not drink, he could not stay late, and he was also busy. We had all of one night to get all these done. So we checked into a hotel and left early next morning, for Orissa which had now replaced Leh as our destination in the mid term. The roads were beautiful, the trees had started to gain substance, and the highway was a multimedia streak of black through thick forest areas.

When we stopped for a cigarette break, the stone I was sitting on had a most nasty scorpion just three inches away. I was in luck; my aching butt was spared, because I spotted the enemy in time.

We stopped at a thatched hut pretending to be dhaba, which had only one man there, the owner. He had a half plucked hen. And had no idea when lunch could be offered. The reason, he was on the look out for some cyclist whose cycle he could borrow to go three kilometres for the other ingredients that would eventually convert his half plucked dead chicken into cooked chicken. So we had tea and philosophy instead of a much needed brunch.

Chattisgarh is a tribal belt. It has its own capital now. Any difference in life, I ask.

“Saab, if you give a Chhattisgarhi Rs 50,000 he will spend it.

And then look for another person from whom he can borrow money, instead of working on his farm or using his land.”

I did not quite figure out what that meant, till I dropped the notion that he might be replying to my question. I was alarmed at the extent of my self-indulgence. We had gone about another 100 kilometres, when I realized I had dropped my spectacle case at that dhaba. It wasn’t that simple. I had stuffed Rs 6000 into it, six notes of one thousand each.

Rohan, alarmed, insisted we go back to the dhaba and find it. I thought it was a waste of time. The philosophic dhaba owner would not be able to resist the temptation of the money, once he found it. But no dissuasion worked on Rohan. And soon enough we were treated to the innocence of the dhaba owner, in Technicolor histrionics, but were set back by an amount that would have lasted us the rest of the journey. Not only that, Rohan’s undue optimism put us back by 200 kilometres. But of course, that optimism, once disappointed, was one crackling series of swear words that lasted throughout the next leg of our journey.

We rode a tree-lined highway all the way from Raipur to Sambalpur. There was hardly a soul in sight. An occasional truck driver panted across us, usually with a Bengal or Orissa registration number. They all raised eyebrows, because our helmeted and stuffed look, and the colourful backpack tied to the back of the bike immediately gave us away as long distance travellers, carrying long term supplies.

Rohan incidentally is an extraordinary man with machines. He would constantly ply me with advice on how to ride on highways, what certain signs meant, what was the best strategy at night. He knew that I had learnt to drive only recently. He also knew that I was paranoid of driving and the roads.

A veteran of the highways, though only 26, Rohan would also tell me various myths of drivers. He said, during long drives in the night on highways, one often came across strange situations. One might find that someone had strayed into the middle of the road. In all likelihood it would be an optical illusion, or worse, an apparition.

His advice, should I encounter such situations, was to not even think of stopping or avoiding that apparition, but just drive right through it!

Such stories enlivened our conversations. There were also stories, extraordinary stories, of his friends and their various adventures. One was an extremely Manto-like story.

Rohan, and three of his friends, had picked up a prostitute to share among themselves. They had a friend’s empty house, because the parents of that friend were out of town for the night. This “home” was in a chawl, and a small one as most chawls are, hardly ten feet by ten feet. In the thrill and desperation of the opportunity, and it’s likely brevity, one of the friends who
moved into the house while others guarded the entrance, practically tore her blouse off, and without a thought threw it away. And while he was in the middle of his yet-to-pay-for sex, his nostrils started to pick up an acrid smell. While his own activity disallowed him from concentrating on the smell, he realized that the woman sweating under him was also not moaning out of mock pleasure, but was stifling wheezes. That’s when there were desperate knocks on the door, and the desperation was untempered by the caution of impatient youngsters waiting for their chance at thrill.

Prashant, loosened his embrace, and disengaged himself from the woman. He realized, there was smoke all over. Those knocking outside were desperate because the goddamn house might be on fire!

In his frenetic seduction ritual Prashant had flung the hooker’s synthetic blouse onto the lone light bulb in the house.

And, while he was busy mating, the blouse had melted, and was now draped in a mess of smoking, melting fabric from the light bulb. The smoke had reached an alarming proportion, and the whole chawl would be up in a minute, since chawls have a habit of being burnt down before one can say “damn your blouse.”

Prashant quickly threw on his clothes, threw at her whatever was left of hers, and they were out in a jiffy. They bundled the woman, draping her saree over her bra, and the other friends into their car. One by one, the friends were dropped off. Prashant was the last one left in the middle of an empty suburban road, and he had no idea how he was going to get the woman a blouse.

His old battered Fiat started to develop some engine trouble. He asked the woman to get down and try to push the car, and he assured her it would not need too much strength, and that he’d buck start the engine. The moment the woman was out off the car, Prashant sped away, leaving her in a huff, and partially in the buff too.

Rohan was not a man heavily troubled by issues such as ethics. I rarely mentioned such issues to him either, or he would never talk to me, and never share his colourful life with me. But in this instance, I ventured to ask him,

“Was Prashant not being mean? Especially, since he was also the only one who had the woman.”

“He has an explanation. And I think he is right. He was once in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s red light area, and after he had visited a prostitute there, he was dumped on the roads only in his underwear. He reached home only in that, minus his watch, clothes, money and his gold chain. He said, he could do unto others what he had had done unto him.”

That was Rohan. Issues that trouble those who have little life never troubled him. Much like Manto’s characters, he was in the thick of things, and took a decision that ensured he survived. There was no morality. There was no strategy. There was no affectation. He lived just as those around him lived. Day to day, incident to incident. Reflection was something he just did not seem to have ever found time for. The only reason he got along with me, was that I did not judge him, and if I had a particular opinion, I just dropped it as a contribution, never instituted an admonishment.

We had been driving through wooded country side. It was late evening, and in the twilight, we suddenly saw a lady waving us to stop. Next to her was a young man trying to change the tyre of his scooter. On either side of these “apparitions” there was just the ribbon of black highway. Rohan did not even notice them; I tapped him hard and asked him to turn around. I told him they were in need of help, and we were free birds.

“Let us gain whatever good wishes we can. Now that hard cash has
abandoned us.”

Rohan stopped, took a U-turn and we stopped next to a very grateful middle aged lady. The man who was sitting at her feet, near the tyre of the scooter, looked up hopefully.

“Do you have a spanner of size six?”

“Yes.”

We stopped, unfastened our considerably heavy tool box, got the required spanner, and gave it to the man. While he was using the spanner to fit in the spare tyre, the lady looked at me, and actually smiled.

“Where are you headed?”

“Sambhalpur”

“Accha.& #8221;

That was all. She asked that question, only to communicate that she appreciated the help. She must have been afraid of the lonely spot their scooter had decided to break down in. And her nephew or neighbour, since he looked too old to be her son, did not inspire her with confidence enough to be secure without fear intrusion.

Rohan and I lit up cigarettes, and another set of two local riders stopped. They examined the situation, and after finding out there was no help needed rode away. The boy asked where we were from.

“Bombay,” said Rohan.

“Bombay! You have been riding from Bombay!” said the boy.

The lady arched her eyebrows.

“Yes,” replied Rohan. He had already packed the spanner into the toolbox. Rohan took unusual pride in Bombay. And he almost expected people to marvel about him because he was from Bombay. He felt he represented Bombay wherever he went. Again, it never occurred to him that Bombay might not choose him to represent the city.

We moved on. We were now in thick forestland. But night had crept up on us. And that is when our headlight decided to develop a hiccup. It started mildly at first. It would just lose power, like a voltage fluctuation, and then suddenly brighten up. Rohan was getting worried.

M N Taraz, our contact in Sambhalpur, Orissa’s tribal district, a school principal, president of the Sambalpur Rotary Club, and also retainer for The Hitavadaa, who was our contact in Sambhalpur, Orissa’s tribal district, was just not picking up his cellphone.

Then, after the stuttering headlight, the engine started to play up.

The bike would suddenly go silent. The darkness on the highway was constantly lacerated by bright lights of booming oil tankers. We were on the outskirts of Sambhalpur, but had no idea how far. Though we started the bike a couple of times, it would go a kilometer or so, and then again cough to a halt, like some tired ox. And Rohan’s anxiety was not helped when we, herding the bike to the side of the highway, were caught like rats in the headlights of a speeding truck leaving Sambhalpur.

“The buggers are all high on alcohol,” Rohan muttered.

The fourth time it stalled was near a sole streetlight. We pulled the bike into its light. The lamp post was there only to mark the way into a neighbouring village. Rohan sat to check the bike, while I frantically tried to contact Taraz. I called up Krishna in Raipur, and he immediately said he was in the middle of a press conference and would call later.

Press conference in Raipur! At 8 O clock in the night!

My scepticism was more an act of frustration. I knew he would not call back. I had asked him to give me Taraz’s residence number, since his cell seemed to have been abandoned to its own wails. When I called again, Krishna had the number. I called Taraz, and found his wife on the line. I told her, I was a friend’s friend, and I wanted to talk to Taraz. She said he was away, and would return only by ten in the night. That was a full two hours later. I said I’d call back.

Taraz was not going to be of help to find or recommend a hotel.

Rohan’s tinkering did not yield any new insights into the working of the tired machine. We buck started the bike, it came to life and I even imagined the headlight was stronger than before. I was back in my seat and we went riding the darkness into Sambhalpur.

It wasn’t to last for long. The damn headlight blinked to a more final death. Then, as Rohan was easing to the side of the highway, we saw a bike’s headlight coming towards us, and as it brushed past us by millimeters to spare we realized that the bike was actually a one-eyed truck!

Rohan was about to stop the bike, when I said it would be best to ride into the city as long as we could. Luckily it worked, we reached
Sambhalpur city safely, and checked into a hotel. I called up Taraz,
and he had still not returned.