Yahan saande ka tel milta hai. Lizard oil sold here. After staying focussed on the macadam for two full hours, pumping the accelerator up to 160 kmph, but mostly at a decent 100, my eyes had wandered towards the small signboard nailed to a bamboo pole. I was doing my fortnightly Delhi-Chandigarh run last winter, driving down from office on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg for an appointment at the Punjab secretariat with finance minister Surinder Singla. The drive in winter sun had been pleasant and I was in no need yet for a vitalising lizard oil massage. Neither had I felt a loss of virility half-way through my drive on Sher Shah Suri’s Grand Trunk Road, now a world-class four-lane highway. It’s just that my eyes had wandered as I sat on a plastic chair under the mid-day sun, sipping a glass of piping hot kadak taaza chai at the Vaishno dhaba at Jhilmil, close to the toll gate, 20 km beyond Karnal. The lizard oil board hung carelessly from the pole, close to a glass shelf stuffed with milk cakes from Alwar that sell for a hundred bucks a kilo. The stall owner gets his supply every evening from Alwar, 200 km away. Much like the lizard oil, the Alwar milk cake is condensed in popular North Indian folklore of amorous men and their propensity for scandalous acts in bed. Which is possibly why the milk cake is also called palang tod or cot-breaker in this part of the world. Bed was still some distance away at Hotel Mount View. Right now, I had the open sky for a roof at the dhaba, my parlour to a quaint world of herbs and plants and vegetarian delights far from the butter chicken joints of Delhi and the watering holes of Sector 17, Chandigarh.
There are dhabas and dhabas along National Highway 1. You hit them the moment you cross the border at Kundli. Red and blue plastic chairs under Pepsi sunshades on a patch of brown in the open. If you are on an early morning call, you could stuff yourself with vegetable pakoras and chai for breakfast or a butter-slice-omlette combo, before gathering speed. You could do that at any joint of your liking. No great shakes in that. But the ones past Karnal are a world of their own. A row of lime plastered concrete halls sporting colourful signboards inviting highway hogs for a meal. My chai over, I dug into delightful gobhi paranthas topped with salted home-made butter and curd for accompaniment. Next, I gorged on a platter of paneer bhurji. The paranthas come in different flavours with stuffings. You could ask for onion stuffed paranthas and methi-stuffed ones. Even ask for the ones with raddish stuffings. The pickle, green chillies and spring onions always come for free. Winter’s a good time for rounding off your meal with hot gulab jamuns and gajar ka halwa. In summer, always go for a lassi. As I helped myself to this mouth-watering roadside cuisine, my eyes wandered all over. Hair regenerating oil with money back offer. Lotions to relieve you of joint aches and pain. Anar dana digestive pills. Ointments to nurse your piles. Dawat basmati rice at factory gate rates. And the famous Pachranga pickles from Panipat. On my way down here, I had sped past rows Pachranga stores on either side of the highway at Panipat. They pickle everything from onions to chillies to tamarind to tender mangoes to garlic and mushrooms. My ear turns to a shack selling latest Punjabi techno-pop albums, its loudspeakers blaring Bulla ki jaana main koun. I wonder...
Retro grubbing has acquired cult following on the Haryana Highway, quite unlike the Chinese-Italian-South Indian fare at the middle class ‘midway’ joints on the roads to Dehradun, Jaipur and Agra. In fact, if you are excited about doing the makke ki roti-sarson da saag round, highway tourism in Haryana will soon come packaged with complimentary buffalo milching sessions.
For now, it’s tawa and tandoori roti. S P Singh, Delhi’s veteran transport hand, says he often drives down to Murthal in Sonepat on the Grand Trunk Road for a meal at Gulshan’s. You could do it in an hour flat. Gulshan and Ahuja dhabas are two-of-a-kind among a cluster of roadside eateries that provide you retro grub in the air-conditioned comfort of family enclosures, serving up to a hundred customers at a time. It’s the same here off Karnal, serving hot tandoori stuff 24x7. And everyone’s invited.
That’s because most Punjabi homes junked their tandoors a long time ago, opting for gas stoves and microwave ovens. And they can no longer do their baigan ka bharta as tasty on the rotisserie. I must have spent a good hour by now at Karnal taking in the surrounding charms in the glow of December sun. It’s time to get started and catch up with Mr Singla. A hundred bucks for the grub is small change. I add another ten as tips. Then jump into my Ikon, turn the ignition on and hit the highway again. It’s Chandigarh in couple of hours.
On my way back Thampi joins me for a ride. “You missed Puran Singh da dhaba this time. Lemme get you there,” he says. Puran Singh’s joint opp the Ambala bus stand had been a chartbuster once, serving delicious chana dal and brain curry. But the place lost its aura ever since old man Puran passed away. We make it to Ambala in double quick time, but I am confused by the several Puran Singh clones that have mushroomed all over. “Which one’s real,” I ask Thampi, before he guides me to the original below the flyover that cuts through town. Chances are that you’ll take the clover to avoid the jam. In which case Puran Singh would easily get the miss.
And unless you’re sure, double check for the right Puran Singh joint. It continues its good ol’ tradition of opening only for a few hours and not serving dinner. And it’s not quite known for veggie dishes, but for chunks of grubby meat helpings. The dhaba has not been able to fight for its brand name ever since the grand old Puran Singh passed away without a clear directive on the change of command.
It’s late in the evening now. I am in rush to get back home. Closer to Delhi, I turn on the stereo to the loud throbs of Teri toh...teri toh...teri toh yaad satawe from Bombay Rockers, the latest chartbuster on FM. I know someone’s waiting. Say chak de phatte to that!
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