Incidental Journey

I have to frequently travel around 420 KM from Visakhapatnam to Bacheli, in Chhattisgarh, where I am working at present. Covering around 130 KM in Andhra, around 150 KM in Odisha and the rest in Chhattisgarh.  The road in Chhattisgarh is very good, as smooth as “Hema Malini’s cheeks”, In Andhra, the road was good until the present Government took over and now they are as smooth as “Om Puri’s cheeks”.

But to talk of roads in Odisha, is a misdemeanor, because most of the stretches are in such deplorable condition with pot holes so deep that one can safely hide when an enemy bombarded that place. It takes more than 4 hours to traverse that 140 KM. One has to be a good driver, with tons of patience to navigate from one pothole to another. But it is compensated by the beauty of the landscape. The elevation rises from 60m to 980m in the Sunki Ghat . The deep valleys, waterfalls, and mountains carpeted by flowers do make our lives a little easier to negotiate those bad roads.

I normally plan to leave home so that I reach my destination before it is dark. They say it is dangerous to drive in Dantewada area at night because of the threat from Maoists. One might not be a particular target for those Maoists, but some newly recruited cadre may be testing their remote controlled bombs to be used later on the police, but we might be the guinea pig that day. Because almost all the Naxalites are from Andhra, a corollary goes that all Andraites are Naxalites.

One day I started a little late than normal and so, I thought I would make it up by speeding in the first and the last part of the journey. But traffic was heavy in the first 120 Km and I found that I did not make up any time. At the base of Sunki Ghat, there is a temple of Goddess Durga, with an imposing 15 feet high statue. I normally, as a rule stop and pay my obeisance, more because I need a break in my journey. This day I thought, I would skip that and carry on.

“Would Goddess Durga be angry?” I thought aloud.

“Naaa, Gods don’t get angry, more because she knows that I am getting late”  

Speeding as I was crossing the temple, I hit into a huge pothole, made my car rise a few feet from the road and fall ‘thud’ and I applied brakes to come to a halt just in front of the temple. I got out looking if there is any damage to the vehicle. Not much, except some additional purring sounds from under the body. Now that I was forced to stop, went into the temple and asked “Maa Durga, do you also get angry?” For which, I am searching for an answer till date. I can’t believe that Gods punish us if we don’t pray to them. Or maybe they do, and I am wrong all these days.

I continued nevertheless, the meandering Ghat road. The torturous curves will keep you on the edge of your seat. The road was isolated and very few vehicles pass by. I was enjoying the scenery of the valley, when suddenly I noticed that I was being followed by a bunch of people on motor cycles. I could see from the rear view mirror that all six of them riding the bikes wore the same black T-shirts. It was very clear that either they were trying to overtake me or trying to stop me. They reminded me of the motor cycle gangs in Australia, who waylaid people, kill them and loot them, just for the heck of it. I was a little scared. Frankly, too scared. 

I watched one of them actually making gestures for me to stop. What do I do? When I increase my speed, they too kept up the pace. At times they came very close to me and were shouting at me to stop. They looked like those ruffians in old Telugu movies. I pretended as if I did not notice. I sped on.

Knowing the road well, I knew I had it. After a few kilometers, the road is so bad that I will have to slow down and they would catch up with me there. Maybe it is all coming to an end this way? If they slit my throat, no one would notice for a long time. With no other choice, I stopped my car.

The air conditioner was on full blast, but drops of sweat flowed down my cheeks. Within seconds all six bikes stopped all round my car. One of them, maybe their leader knocked my window. I sheepishly lowered it. “God, is it the way you want to end my life?” Now I am at the mercy of some ruthless gang. That was it.

“Uncle, you rear wheel is flat, we were trying to tell you that for a long time”

“Oh! I am sorry, thanks, thanks” I managed to blurt.

“Do you want us to help change the wheel?”

“Thank you” I said “That will be very nice of you”

Those people, whom I thought were murderers and looters, actually helped me in change the tyre.

Life hangs on a thin line. I thanked them profusely and continued my journey. I was already late. The sky was turning to a reddish orange shade. It will get dark soon. I successfully negotiated the deplorable Odisha roads and entered Chhattisgarh. Hema Malini’s cheeks. I increased speed. It was totally dark then. I hate driving in the dark. I always avoid it; it is because of the glare of the head lamps of the oncoming vehicles. I tend to lose my position, I would not know, which part of the road I am on. But I carried on and was nearing Dantewada. The hot bed of Naxalism.

As I was speeding, I was happy that there was a white Tata Sumo ahead of me. I was happy to follow it, more because it blocked the glare from the oncoming vehicles. I was actually tailing it. If it slowed down I too slowed to stay behind.

I noticed that a couple of people seated in the rear of that vehicle were intently interested in my car. They were constantly watching me. I even noticed that they said something to the people seated in front and pointed at me. But all this observation was as an after-thought, at that moment I was only interested in reaching my destination soon.

That Tata Sumo stopped. I too stopped some distance from that. No one got out of that vehicle, I wondered why they stopped. Losing patience, I overtook them and continued. I saw from my rear view that the Sumo stayed put there.

I was reaching the outskirts of Dantewada; a lone policeman waved me to stop. I stopped and was in the process of lowering my windowpane, when in a flash I found that I was surrounded by deadly looking people in black dress, with black scarves over their heads and pointing their guns at me. I was surrounded.

One of them opened the door and nudged me to come out. I was stunned; this was scarier than the gang on motor cycles. They were all pointing their guns at me as I sheepishly got out of the car. I was too shocked to speak anything. They took me to a distance, all the while with guns pointing at me. Some of them were searching my car. They opened my suitcase in the dickey and rummaged it. My car was searched thoroughly.

Then followed the questioning. And I told them that I was heading to Bacheli as I am a contractor there. They asked for references and made enquiries with them. Slowly the atmosphere around me eased. The guns were lowered.

“Why were you following that Sumo?” asked the leader, who looked just as deadly as our NCC Subedar.

I told them the actual reason, to avoid the glare of lights. In that darkness, I then saw a faint smile on his face.

“Do you know whom, you were following?” he said “The District Collector”

“With your AP registration car, they got suspicious and asked us over wireless to check”

Then came the Tata Sumo. The leader ran towards it and maybe he appraised the collector of the facts. The sumo left.

“Chalo, chai pilao”