| The Travelogue - Part One
Delhi - Khajuraho - Orchha - Delhi.
25 -28 Dec 2008.
Two people. Only one driving.
Fiat Palio Stile Multijet SDE in stock condition.
1291 kms on 70 litres of HP / BP Normal diesel.
Every travelogue tends to start from the point where you choose the particular destination. In my case, I was tossing between Rajasthan and the parts of Madhya Pradesh that are close to Delhi. The deciding factor was the availability of only four days leave, starting Christmas Day. It didn’t take long to post a route query on the website, and was advised to take into account the fog, which could be a total spoilsport to an otherwise perfectly practical itinerary.
Historically important places appeal to different people in different ways. Khajuraho and Orchha are windows into the life and times of the medievals. Traversing through interesting terrain while driving to these places is attractive enough; with clement weather, there is the opportunity for good photography as well. So it was decided that the two of us, my friend and I, would start at daybreak on Christmas Day, aiming to reach Khajuraho by dusk, putting a healthy 620 kms between us and the metropolis in a span of thirteen-odd hours.
You are never too early while starting off on a road trip, and I can never sleep properly on the night before a road trip. Even the faintest of noises are very loud and even the hitherto unfelt vibrations of the trains going near the house rock my bed. To put it mildly, I slept for just three hours prior to the departure. By 5.45 AM, I was at my travel companion’s house. A short delay, and we were on our way again.
The fog, though present, was not threatening enough so far. Before two and three wheelers hit the roads, we had crossed Faridabad and Ballabhgarh. That’s when the fog came down in dense patches. One moment we were at triple-digit speeds, the next moment we had to slow down to twenty kilometres an hour. But I have seen much worse. This was not the fog where you couldn’t see the extremities of your own vehicle. We parked at the McDonald’s near the Mathura Refinery a few minutes before eight.
I know the Delhi-Agra road fairly well and the only thing that has changed over the years is the number of malls, colleges and other buildings along this road. It is a reflection of our times. The road is good and one does feel optimistic about things seeing such stretches. But this lasts only till the point where a two-wheeler or a tractor does something suicidal right in front of you. Shaken, you feel the exhilaration of driving on such roads dissolving away. The users are totally lacking in basic common sense, let alone any road sense. This was the general situation throughout the trip and even the best roads saw me driving at a steady 80-100 kms an hour, except the rare foray into the 120s and 130s, undertaken just to see the stability of the vehicle.
A few minutes beyond Mathura Refinery, we turned right towards the so-called “By-Pass” to Agra city towards Gwalior. For the next hour, the word “road” could be used loosely to describe kilometres of surface where spotting a continuous patch of black top was a luxury. I was debating the choice of this road to circumvent the traffic within Agra city. Four days later, it proved to be the right choice. I spent almost three hours within Agra city, just because I tried to avoid this road. Once I hit NH-3 towards Gwalior, I regained some lost time as well as optimism. The road is arrow-straight, with lesser traffic than NH-2. The landscape immediately after Agra is like an endless Yash Chopra movie song, such is the spread of kilometres of mustard fields. The urge to stop and stand there is very strong. However, if you know that there is a considerable distance to be covered your mind focuses on maintaining the pace.
The NH-3 dream run seems to be short-lived as the divided road becomes a two-lane affair and disappears behind low hills that seem to have appeared out of nowhere. I guided the car along the curves and suddenly realised that the landscape has transformed without notice. There were dark shadows of ravines amidst shining pink and yellow rocks. I didn’t have to think twice as to where I was. I was in Dholpur, the home of the stone that has become an intrinsic part of the architecture of Delhi, especially New Delhi. I shook my friend awake, he was having his second long nap since the morning: “Abey Uth, dekh Dholpur.” He gave me a weird look. “What the hell? Have I never seen Dholpur stone before?” “Not the stone, the place!”
Morena was uneventful, despite the gajak market waking up on the roadside tents. It was also as potholed as any other town. The Collectorate, the Civil Hospital, the Post Office—all those “important” buildings of the moffussil flashed by as I honked, swerved, clutched and declutched my way through it. I was in Morena, the gateway to the dacoit-infested Bundelkhand. And there was a lot more of it up ahead. That spurred me on! The road improved, and I tried to make it to Gwalior by noon-time, missing the target by a few minutes. It took us some effort and some amount of asking to get through the city and get on the road to Jhansi. Both of us realised that some people take it very seriously if you have taken a wrong turn, almost to the point of scolding you when you ask them for directions. We were unaware of how much of this we were going to face further.
The rapid disappearance of any sort of civilisation from either side of NH-75 immediately after Gwalior put a doubt in our minds that was fuelled further by our growling stomachs. An Engineering College passed by—an overdone block with metallic louvers on the façade that rises like some sort of megalomaniac villain’s hideout in the middle of rocky landscape. Shortly afterwards, we reached Radha Krishan Dhaba and stopped for lunch. A good decision, we realised later, because there weren’t too many good eating places further before Jhansi.
There are some perennial arguments at a highway dhaba, especially the somewhat upmarket ones. Sit on the roadside, in the sun or inside? Lassi or Water? Dal Fry or Dal Makhani? We went through the ritual and had a good lunch before One o’ clock. Two bottles of water on the windshield, some vigorous rubbing with the newspaper and we were off!
The next eighty kilometres are good for any driver who intends to laze his way through the post-lunch hour or two, because the road doesn’t allow you to do just that. Thanks to the extensive four-laning work happening in this section, you are fighting for space on the narrow remaining patch or testing your suspensions through the diversions. Jhansi came at three, after a thorough abuse of the car through the worst part of this stretch, which is around Datia.
Our target of finishing the drive by nightfall was unachievable now. The NH-75 is a most tricky stretch after Jhansi. The road is smooth and fairly straight but not wide enough for two vehicles to cross at high speeds. The remnants of the old road stretch for about four feet on either side, but they are six inches lower or simply non-existent. The buses and trucks from the other directions force you off the road, even if they have space on their left. For the first time in my life, I did not know whether to appreciate the fine balance between ride and handling that the Italians have put in on the 178 platform or to feel envious of the people in the SUVs moving unfazed through all this.
At six-thirty, we stopped at a roadside tea-shop, immediately after Chhatarpur. It was pitch dark already, and we did not get out. The tea was sweet, as sweet as sugar syrup. We finished it off in a hurry and pushed into the final leg, the final one-tenth of our journey. Somewhat tired but thoroughly satisfied, we rolled into the parking lot of Hotel Yogi Lodge at about 7.40 PM. Dinner was eagerly looked forward to.
Continued in Part Two. | 
21st January 2009, 16:03
. I hope I am able to finish in a day or two.
