Quest of quaint travels

Quest of the Quaint travels 

Traveling has been my fate, my ceaseless life for 5 decades. The eternally spinning wheel of traveling life began when I chose a salesman’s career at 21. I traveled from Punxsutawney in Western Pennsylvania to Palabora in northeastern South Africa, Amreli in Gujarat to Aizawl in North East, Pochampalli in Andhra to Pathankot in Kashmir. I traveled by the bullock carts, horse-drawn buggies, old and dilapidated buses, narrow-gauge trains, and planes with one and a half wing. I traveled 20 days a month; travel that was backbreaking, head spinning, whirlwind, bizarre, throbbing, exciting, fun, struggles but sweet. There was never a moment of boredom in my life. 

Let me take you through some of my more exotic and quaint journeys. 

Nestled in the gently rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania, Punxsutawney is approximately 90 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, USA, and is home to tiny 6,800 residents. The hotel receptionist warned us to hurry since the only diner in the town would be shut by 7 pm. The city's rush hour traffic comprises 2 cars and 1 truck at morning 8 am. The town is in the middle of large coal seam gas and hence the reason for my visit. 

Palabora is a mining town, north-eastern South Africa, next to the Kruger national park. We took a chartered plane from Johannesburg to reach there and spent a night in the hotel in the forest. Elephants roaming about on the hill late at night kept me awake. The town is known for its 250 million tons iron ore dump, which is like a hill and was available for sale, a reason I visited. 

Nagda in Central India, MP, is a dusty, one-horse town. I would get off the train and crank a telephone machine from the railway station to call the town’s sole horse-driven cart. Waiting for the horse carriage was made bearable by the railway attendant, who sold chilled beer from an empty wagon parked in the yard. The town is known for a spinning mill owned by the Birlas who was my client. 

Visiting a hostile client in Rajasthan's Shikar town was always an ordeal. He would never serve us even a glass of water, leave aside a cup of tea. Returning to the railway station was no solace, as it was just a shade. We discovered a hut across the railway tracks that served hot puris to hungry and footloose salesmen like us. We sat cross-legged on jute cloth and ate hot puris. 

Alwar in Rajasthan had this dhaba called Prem Pavitra dhaba that served a delicious vegetarian meal. The owner Prem Pavitra Jatia would always ask us before serving if we had taken a bath that morning. In the cold winter of Rajasthan, we simply lied. The dhaba still exists, though the owner is dead. My client, a small mill owner who used to take us there, became a billionaire industrialist in later years. 

Drive through thick and unending forests of Jharkhand (erstwhile Bihar) from Gomia to Dhanbad in the late evening was always scary. A taxi would take me to catch Black Diamond Express to Calcutta from Dhanbad station. The talkative cab driver’s narrative about dacoits beheading passengers to gain their valuable always made me think of my tiny family 2000 kilometers away. I spent the two hours' ride on the wheels and a prayer. 

Istanbul, vibrant and chaotic, is like nothing else. The city is witness to the harmony of Islam and Christianity, comingling of Mosques and Martinis, beautiful women clad in burkhas and mini skirts. The city watches over ancient Asia, and eternal Europe facing each other across the bridge. The city gently displays ethnicity and modernity, contemporary and historic, old and new, bleak past and bright future; two sides of lustrous life all around. 

Fate chased me all over the forbidden places like Tehran, Khartoum, Caracas, Bogota, but was kind enough to bring me back alive and safe to tell the tale. 

Chaos, confusion, color, fun, food, future, energy, hope, and optimism are the words to summarize my life as a traveling salesman.