Sex on highways

“Can you see her?”

“Who?”

“That lady … na, girl, Sir”

“Where?”

“There…”

Yes, at last I spotted her. Gawdily dressed. Kohl-eyed. Darkish pink lipstick.
Anil Pandeyji winked at me.

I know what that wink meant.

Yes, she is a commercial sex worker – CSW to be short.

Subtly she was signalling the approaching truck.

Would she be able to meet with the eyes of driver or his second in command behind the glasses of the Man Force truck coming in the opposite direction?

We were on National Highway 24 linking Lucknow with country’s capital: New Delhi.

We had passed Bareilly and it was past half past two.

Traffic was thin.

A phat-phat with an overload of passengers almost hanging on its bumper was in front of our 40 tonne Tata trailer.

In fact, that was moving faster than our truck.

We were cruising at 30 kmph.

Not because we love slow driving, but the highway was just a dual carriageway and with – yes, you’ve guess correctly – a lot of potholes.

The CSW, whom Pandeyji fingered at, was hardly 100 metres away perhaps.
Her signalling was superb: very subtle. Only a trained eye can spot that.

Pandeyji, a veteran 20 plus year highwayman, was one such who sported an expert eye.

Her right hand was kept closer to the body. Wherever it ended, her palm projected at 90 degrees and facing downwards, was moving up and down at a faster clip.

The message: “come, come!”

“Pandeyji, daytime prostitution?” I demanded.

“Anytime, Sir. Why only night?”

By then, we passed the CSW in question.

Pandeyji was keep looking at the rearview mirror to update me on further development! Nothing happened, I presume because he did not say anything.

After a deafening silence for a few minutes, Pandeyji’s eyes lit up.

“There… There. See… Another one.”

Pervez, second driver, who was lying down on the lower berth behind driver’s seat, quietly sat up, rubbing his eyes to get a better view.

He moved to the centre of the back seat which offered a better glimpse of whatever happening in front.

I peered in front closely. Almost my nose touching the frontside transparent glass.

I also rubbed my eyes. Quickly plucked out my eyewear, cleaned off and reinserted into the previous slot. A lot more clarity.

Hawn… There they were. Not one, but two.

Much younger lot. One in salwar kameez. Another in sari.

Yes, they too were gesticulating.

Suddenly, the Xylo in front stalled forcing us to halt.

Good comeuppance!

The driver from Xylo got out and began checking his tyre.

Now we are hardly 15 metres away from the two pretty-girls-on-the-road.

One of the trucks halted in response to their “mating call” perhaps.

In a typical Hindi film style, the sari-clad CSW remained silent; her shoulder-length free flowing hair was covering her left bosom. She was coy and demure; but the come-hither-look was unmistakeable.

The salwar kameez wali and the second driver or assistant were engaged in deep conversation. We were so close I could easily see her biting her lower lips in a seductive manner while the guy in the truck was mouthing something. Exploring business proposition!

But for the cacophony created by traffic that has built up behind us and in front made hearing impossible, I would have heard ‘juicy’ dialogue! Alas.

Pandeyji, Pervez and I were curiously watching the drama unfolding in front of us.

“Will the business materialise?” I asked no one in particular.

“Hmmm.”

The driver of Xylo, in front of our truck, managed to sort out his mess and vroomed away.

We had no option but to move on.

Again, we missed the full scene.

Do they stop on the roadside if the transaction fructifies so that the partners in passion move into the back seat for business compliance?

“Anything possible,” was Pandeyji’s quick repartee.

A few months ago, I had a close encounter with a CSW in Hubli – but that was past midnight. (http://myroadiary.blogspot.com/2010/11/sex-hubli.html).

Daytime solicitation was something I never anticipated.

I could not resist asking Pandeyji about his take on highway prostitution.

How was able to spot the CSWs whereas I could not?

“Sadhus recognise sadhus. Criminals recognise criminals,” he opened up. Single focus.
If one is looking for female company, he knows the signs and symptoms. No rocket science.

In fact, there are many roadside dhabas we noticed with female servants serving truckers while crossing Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

“It’s just a camouflage,” explained my friendly driver. Everyone needs a pretext or setting to transact business. The dhabas or food stalls are used for negotiations.

Even if there were police raids while the verbal transaction is in full swing, the cover of serving tea or food is helpful. If the verbal negotiations mature, they move into back rooms behind curtains or the paddy fields.

It is a flourishing business.

Pandeyji had an interesting question. He had many friends in the driving community who had died of AIDS. But he never heard of any CSW dying of AIDS. How come? “One of my colleagues, I saw with my own eyes, shedding weight: from 75 kilos to 30 kilos.

Pathetic,” he recollected. At the same time, Pandeyji says with a straight face that he had seen many CSWs over years who continue to do business even today. “They are still alive. They have not changed profession,” remarks he. My argument that maybe these CSWs go for medical check up and subsequent remedial treatment at regular intervals. On the other hand, men just carry on as if nothing has happened and pay a heavy price: death. Pity.

**

Post Rampur, the sun is setting. Gentle breeze. I notice two ladies on the left side of the road walking towards us. They are beautiful. Come hither look, too. I pick up my camera to click a few images. Pandeyji restrains me. Why? “Sir, they are not CSWs. Family girls,” explains the road warrior. I quickly duck down in the truck cabin and dump the camera into the dashboard. Ohmigod! Mistaking rope for a snake!

The fallacy of malobservation!. Dunno. I have forgotten the nomenclature I had learnt 35 years ago as a student of logic in college. Never mind. Few more highway trips and I would be as good as Pandeyji.

NOTE: This trip – Jamshedpur to Ludhiana (1650 km over 6 days and 6 nights) was sponsored by Credence Logistics, Bombay. Www.credencelogistics.com

Ganja, gulab jamun & gud

“Yeh kya pata hai aapko?” demanded Anil Pandeyji, the fortyish driver, my companion on the 1650 km onroad trip from Jamshedpur to Ludhiana while flashing a 3 feet green plant in mid-February. We were parked on the roadside, 40 km away from Shahjanpur, Uttar Pradesh, for our morning tea. The weather was supine with sun and gentle breeze playing friendly game with us. I was brushing my teeth with a stub of neem stalk. Don’t know when was the last time I had used neem stalk instead of the bristled toothbrush. I simply could not recognise the plant Pandeyji was brandishing and naturally responded with “Tell me, na?”.

“Ganja plant!” he chortled.

“What? Ganja?” I retorted. I had never seen a ganja plant in my life so far. Not that I am unaware of ganja as a “nasha” item. Never ever had I seen it in the form of plant. For me, it was always in the powder or crushed dry leaves form. Naturally I was puzzled.

How did ganja sprout in the middle of the paddy field on the Uttar Pradesh roadside? Sensing my discomfort, Pandeyji explained that these patch of ganja ought to have germinated from the remnants of ganja thrown by passengers who had halted for a tea break and partaken the nasha item.

“No, this is not a place where they are grown for commercial consideration,” he hastened to add. Out of curiosity, I grabbed the plant from his hands and plucked a few green leaves to crush. The patch of ganja plants at the back of the roadside dhaba was sizeable: maybe 200 individual plants, each, two or three feet high. They were hale and hearty. Green and swaying in the morning breeze. When dried and crushed, what damage they can cause to the homo sapiens was unimaginable. They are all God’s own creation, no doubt.
**
Even before I could recover from ganja shock, I began to notice sweetmeat shops tomtoming about “gulb jamun” warranting a question as to what is so special about the gulab jamun of Michaelganj. “Kakki dekko,” pat came the reply from second driver Pervez Khan. We alighted down for sampling.

Every single shop in the crowded marketplace boasted they were the best. If so, which one to choose? Pandeyji, a regular traveller on this route, without any loss of time guided us to Ramakant’s “mashoor” dukaan – a favourite stop for his gulab jamun consumption.



The elderly Ramakant filled up three plastic containers with two gulab jamun each. Piping hot they were. I noticed that every shop on this busy stretch was selling more and more gulab jamun: many were picking up these sugary, dark and soft brownish sweetmeats in mud pots – not in glass or plastic or tin containers – for consumption at home or wherever.

“Gulab jamun galli hai, yeh,” chipped in Pervez Khan. Ramakant kaka was eagerly dishing out more to buyers. Pandeyji, expectedly, opted for a second helping. I could not, though wanted to, because I am diabetic. But would not mind stopping at this junction again, next time.
**
Traversing through Uttar Pradesh after entering from Bihar before exiting into Haryana at Karnal several hours later, one could not escape witnessing sugarcane fields. Occasionally, we would pass over onsite gud (jaggery) making. The wafting jaggery aroma is unmistakable.

Pandeyji, a hardcore UP Brahmin with an agricultural background besides “drivery”, promised to halt at one of the gud factories en route to give me a first hand exposure. I seldom had any idea when and where he would oblige me. It did happen in Shamli, situated on the Meerut-Karnal unmotorable road, which was 15 kilometre before one crossed the river that separates Uttar Pradesh from Haryana.

“This is it,” the graduate-turned-Raymond’s sporting Pandeyji thundered before slowing down on the roadside near a gud manufacturing facility. We jumped out in glee. Rather I. Diabetic and therefore can’t afford to partake sweets, so what? At least, I can see. Say around a dozen people were busy in an old-style tiled roof shed:



Some feeding neatly laid out sugarcane bundles into the crusher; someone manning three huge vats with simmering boiled sugarcane juice in various stages; someon was thrusting dried sugarcane leaves into oven as fuel three feet down. Honestly, it was disgusting to watch the dirty sugarcane juice cruising through the narrow cemented canal from the crusher to the ground level tank.



There was some amount of cleansing of sugarcane juice was in progress. Someone was lifting hot and liquid gud from the final melting vat to pour into the huge aluminium plate where it was spread evenly by another helper. Once it solidified – it happens quickly – many sitting around the plate began slicing them into small cakes. Soon, I saw them dumping the warm gud cakes into a mound near the corner of the room.



Pandeyji picked up his usual quota of 10 kilos for his family and friends. Once he bought almost a quintal (100 kg) just before Sankranti. “Nowhere in India, you will get to see gud in this small cake form,” he explained. What about me? Yes, I did take just one kilo. “What? Is that sufficient?” asked the owner of the gud facility.



He does not know about my diabetic history. However, I bit into a stub of sugarcane and one small piece of gud cake. Oh, God, you’ve been cruel!

NOTE: This trip (1650 km from Jamshedpur to Ludhiana over 6 days/6 nites was sponsored by Credence Logistics Ltd, Mumbai. www.credencelogistics.com)