Adventure on the Highway

18th Feb 2007, National Highway No. 7, 70 km from Hirdhwani:

8.00 p.m. : Driver suspected of taking a few swigs while we stopped somewhere.
8.30 p.m. : Very rash driving, insistence on listening to Jagjit Singh’s Ghazals at the loudest possible volume.
9.20 p.m. : Driver expresses his desire to meet his children in the village as well as his dead parents.
9.25 p.m. : Anshu takes the wheel by force. Driver goes on rambling, Anshu shuts him up and shall be called ‘Hero on the Highway’ in the later days.
10.30 p.m. : We stop at the dhabha to grab a bite. I almost doze off.
10.50 p.m. : Driver missing along with his bag.
11.00 p.m. : Search futile. Anshu decides to drive all the way to Delhi. Entertains/scares us with stories of the notorious dacoits of Uttar Pradesh..
1.00 a.m. : Near Ghaziabad. Flat tyre on the other qualis. Too sleepy by now, can hardly understand what is happening.
4.00 a.m. : Anshu finally parks the car in the campus.

19th February 2007, IIFT, New Delhi:

The owner comes and takes his car away, with promises of taking the driver to task incase he is found. I discover I left a few cassettes in the car. Life resumes in the normal mode with two hour breakfasts, three hour lunches and four hour dinners. (Includes time spent in making calls to collect people).