Truck Tales - part 2 -

Sunday - 14
Rohan reached Nanded at Dawn at 4.00 am.  Nanded is right next to the banks of river Godavari.The early morning chill in the air was cutting like little pins on his skin. He had taken the bus which travelled to Nanded. It reached Hadgoan at 1.30 am and the Nanded station at 3.50. The Nanded station looks like a Gurudwara.

As he got down the bus stand he felt the sudden hunger which was hurting his stomach. He looked around and found a tea stall. A cutting chai had never tasted so good before.

He decided to check up with the taxi service provider at 5.00 am even though he knew that the time was too early. But he got his next set of directions.

Seema was in Degloor a place very close to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

He tried to find some transport. He found none. Tried hiring a taxi but it was too early and he wanted to reach early as he wanted to also be back in Mumbai on Monday.

Thus he took a lift. A lift from a truck. Rohan found to his dismay that getting in this truck was hard. The door was too high and it took him some effort getting in.  The road from Nanded to Degloor was as smooth as moons surface. In fact there were so many potholes that the truck was flying at top speed and as it was going so fast, the truck was barely touching the ground.

The fields on view had black soil which is very fertile and grows cotton, soyabean and turi excellently.

At 8 am he had reached Degloor. The people as he found out could speak Marathi, Kannada and Telagu in the same sentence and breath. As he asked around, finally he where Seema was.

At 10 am he met Seema near the main centre. She was suprised to see him, she liked it - the gesture but she also found it stupid.

As they chatted, fought and pranked around 2 hours went by in no time.

Seema still had work to do and so Rohan joined her as she went about photo doumenting small villages, their agricultural crops and their lives over all. At around 4, when Rohan said he wanted to go back to Mumbai. But Seema would have none of it. She appreciated the adventure Rohan had gone through and she wanted to savior it, and Rohan going back was not a part of it.

" Go back on Tuesday. Call in sick tommorow".

And thus Rohan and Seema were together at last. They spent there time together as they were closer now than they were ever before.


There was still one more trip to happen, and this trip was to Hadgoan which Rohan and Seema did together to cover the bazaar day at Niwgabazar on Monday the 15th.

As Rohan slept on his journey back on Monday night in his train berth, his dreams carried visuals of Green fields from Wardha and the Black fertile soils of Nanded.

His life as he knew it would never be the same again.


A short story by Ninad Tatke.