Taking the high road

When I lived and worked in Delhi for more than ten years, the only reliable way to get to Chandigarh and back was the train called Morning Shatabdi. The road trip, I thought, was at least 90 minutes longer, and would involve dodging trucks, with flatland on either side. Best to ignore the bother. Instead, jump on the train, partake of a greasy breakfast, enjoy industrial- strength tea, read the paper, take a nap, and get to your destination quick, painless, largely on time.

Except, when India play Pakistan in the 2011 World Cup semi-final, the Morning Shatabdi becomes irrelevant. The night is spent churning out copy, while patient desk owls wait back at HQ in Bangalore. As India wakes to a golden glow of its first ever home World Cup final, the slowest writer on the ESPNcricinfo Mohali crew, yours truly, hits "send" at 5am. We could have made a run for the train, but last-minute seats on the Morning Shatabdi are the stuff of myth. The road awaited.

We stumble out of Chandigarh at lunchtime, hardly believing the last 24 hours. The match was hypermanic, the Indians got out of jail, and the Mohali press box was so jammed that if you moved your elbows at one end of the long desks, coffee cups could topple at the other.

The morning of the match, colleague Osman Samiuddin and I were sans hotel, as the rather tony Zirakpur establishment we were staying in was all booked. Enter another colleague, the insanely resourceful Nagraj Gollapudi, to pull off an impossible rescue. Himself booked into the not-very-tony Hotel Towns Pride (Banquet Hall, Beer Bar, Restaurant, Rooms in that order of preference, and we suspected, serviceability), he somehow get a hold of their last available room. A deluxe "suit", at Rs 5000 a night. The hotel is a five-minute walk from the ground, its deluxe suite two bare rooms: one with a sofa, coffee table and desk, the other with a bed. The fact that it existed and was available on India-Pakistan World Cup semi-final night was deluxe enough.

Driving in and out of Chandigarh takes you past mango groves that stretch as far as the eye can see. It is a sight I absolutely love. Chandigarh gets beat up over its pride in its broad roads, traffic roundabouts and sector-mania, but how many cities have their own full-fledged orchards? Apparently, there used to be tens of thousands more trees before they were cleared to build the city; you've got to be grateful for the hundreds left behind.

Our taxi to Delhi is driven by a lover of Punjabi rap, who, thrilled by the previous night's result, naturally chooses to drive at an exhilarated pace. We slip onto NH44, and if we keep going we will reach Kanyakumari, 3000km away south. If we head north, 600-odd kilometres will take us to Srinagar. Should we be permitted to go west, we could reach Lahore in the same time it would take us to get to Delhi in the east.

The highway is flanked by the North Indian plains, minus any topographically distinct characters. The land, though, is soaked in history, folklore and legend. It is where invaders, marauders and warring armies came thundering through the ages. Over time, every ambition they brought with them was rendered insignificant. Defeated by the land, baked to a crisp by the heat. I tend to look for the markers of history everywhere; on the arrow-straight road from Chandigarh to Delhi, they lie in the names.

Before mulling over the fables of Kurukshetra and the bloody past of Panipat, however, pickles must be contemplated. It is a parade of them in shop after shop after shop, in kiosks and stores - the entire panoply of the North Indian pickle family. The undeniable leader is the regulation North Indian "restaurant pickle" which has hijacked the name "Pachranga" and made it a generic brand found everywhere on signboards and hoardings, big and small. The Pachranga is made of the karonda berry, lotus stem, mango, chickpeas, limes or amla (native gooseberry) in mustard oil, with salt and chillies. Not my favourite, but obviously beloved enough of millions, given how much of it is sold on NH44. If the world ever ran out of stuff to eat along with every possible cereal and grain, there would be enough Pachranga on the road from Chandigarh to Delhi to feed the planet.

As we speed through the ageless countryside, a technological miracle is in progress. My air ticket for the Mumbai final is being booked via laptop, using an internet dongle, and I "tele-check in" through the Blackberry. It will amuse millennials to find this among the high points of the journey, but understand this: when I joined the workforce, there were zero private airlines or telecom companies, and no consumer internet. It is a wonder I don't pray to my smartphone every morning.

Our Punjabi Fernando Alonso needs a break and we must pause for a dhaba meal. The traditional truck stops of the last century, dhabas are now monuments to architectural expression and cater to many budgets. Ours, one of a thousand "Haveli" dhabas, could have passed off in a corner of any Indian town as a hospital or private school or government building. Yet whatever the NH44 dhabas look like, their fundamentals - the food - remain solid. Stay faithful to the staples - roti, kaali daal, saag, paneer, potatoes, lassi (flat bread, black lentils, greens, cottage cheese and a sweet yoghurt drink) - and you will not leave unhappy. May the ghosts of truckers passed always ensure that.

Three and a half hours after leaving Hotel Town's Pride, the first sighting of Delhi is a horizon that shrugs off every medieval echo and fills itself with buildings. Like the landscape it has passed, ours is a journey of little distinction but remains rich in context: from where it began and where it will end.

More than 18 months later, when I set out from my home in Noida for Chandigarh, it's a very different kind of road trip - though still about cricket. I must get to Yuvraj Singh's home in Mani Majra for one last interview, to fill in details for his book about tackling cancer after taking India to their 2011 World Cup victory. In that World Cup, Yuvraj was a titan, ending up Player of the Tournament. In that semi-final versus Pakistan, he was bowled for a duck but got Asad Shafiq and Younis Khan. His life has changed in ways he could never have imagined. Mani Majra is the neighbourhood from where he was picked to play for India. It is a place of solace, and I will meet a man at peace with who he is and where he's been.

It is November and the landscape is softer at dawn. Everything seems quieter; the pickle shops haven't opened for business. The mist and haze rising off the ground looks, if you had to put a colour to it, wheaty. It draws the eyes into the distance. We are whizzing over a flyover arcing past what may look like a cookie-cutter NH44 town. But it is still Panipat. The sun is rising on this gateway to the power of an older Delhi, where conquerors came to conquer and men came to die.

Our dhaba for the morning is a shack; bamboo, wood, straw mats, plastic chairs, formica tables, zero concrete; breakfast is proper chai, not out of a machine, a tandoor paratha and a bowl of curds. We're offered chillies, onions and some Pachranga - but it's not that time of day yet.