Baara anna jhoot, Chaar anna sach!

 JHARKHAND WANDERINGS....

  

It has to happen…. And it happened

Believe it or not over the past four years I have come to be identified as someone whose heart beats for truck drivers. Always.

I can’t deny that.

Yet…

It does not mean that I am blind to their faults.

Never once did I miss a chance to pull them up for their wrong doings – including their drunken driving, clandestinely running second ‘home’ away from their main family, diesel theft, disconnecting GPS systems to avoid detection, leaving loaded vehicles on highways unprotected en route to spend a night with their families – deep inside villages.

At times, I had even gone to the extent of admonishing them for fathering more children than they can afford to feed, clothe and shelter. “Yeh, uparwalah kaa meherbaani hai!” (This is God’s gift!) is how they sheepishly respond.

Like elementary school students, they heard me out quietly and gently chided me at the end for ‘trying to discipline them” and declaring non-challantly that they are ‘incorrigible’.

That was a kind of bon homie I have developed with these God’s children.

Yet….

When Ranjit Singh(turbanned Sardarji in the pix) blurted out, “Baara anna jhoot aur chaar anna sach” at the Tatanagar transport hub on an April morning, I was disturbed.

The portly Sardarji, owner of three trucks plying Tata Steel wares to wherever he is asked to, was in his elements. Actually, he called me out when I was about to exit his first floor hall where he was seated with several other Punjab/Haryana drivers after our short interaction with an elderly Rewari-based driver.

My companion Selvan Dasaraj, Vice President, Mahindra Logistics, earlier in the day hinted that this man may turn out to be an ‘interesting guy’. I was unsure of that call because his responses were monosyllabic and gave an indication that he did not take us seriously.

Seriously about what?

Our aim of the Jharkhand wandering was to interact with truck drivers and visit their families in remote villages to get a sense of what really happens when these motorized charioteers are out on the highways and their family members – spouse, children or parents – fall sick and who takes care of their children’s education in their long absence from home.

Singh’s body language also signaled that our mission was ‘wrong’.

Why?

He felt and expressed that truck drivers are ‘no angels’.

If not that, then what?

“Jaan ka dushman”(Perpetual enemies), is how he responded. They are simply not trustworthy is what he tried to convey without any rancor.

He did not elaborate his stance when prodded.

That’s when Selvan and I decided to move out.

Then came his ‘Come’ call.

While Selvan and I positioned in the foldable chairs, the Sardarji adjusted his paunch and moved on the dais over which he was perched to come closer to us.

“They are not trustworthy,” he began.

They mean who?

“I mean truck drivers,” he spelt out clearly.

Why did he say that?

“They are liars…. Baara anna jhoot aur chaar anna sach,” (They utter 75% falsehood and 25% only truth) he blurted out.

Quickly, Selvan and I exchanged glances.

Did he not sound like I K Malik of Malik Roadlines whom we met the previous evening near Giridih on National Highway 2 at a roadside body building fabrication unit on our way to Tatanagar?

Within 24 hours, we heard the cruelty of drivers towards motor maliks – who claimed they are helpless and trapped – for the second time.

Did we not hear that truck drivers are real smart and therefore any sign of sympathy towards them is ill-conceived?

“Look,” Ranjit Singh commanded, helping us from our collective silent spell caused by that ‘Baara anna” opinion.

A clear case of mistrust, a sensitive psychological but life-altering human trait. 

Instantly, what I had accessed in the notebook of my daughter, doing her Masters in Psychology, about this issue a few months ago began a rerun:

“Trust is a fundamental human experience, necessary for society to function and for any person to be relatively happy. Without it, fear rules. Trust is not an either/or proposition, but a matter of degree. Everyone has uncertainty about whom to trust, how much to trust, when not to trust, and so forth at one time or another. In fact, everyday we make choices about whom and how much to trust, and sometimes we trust more and sometimes less. That’s a good thing. A total lack of mistrust would indicate a serious psychological problem. Judgments about when and whom to trust help keep us alive!”

What’s Singh’s background like? Singh began his career as truck driver and graduated into a motor malik with three trucks under his belt over a period of time. However, he stopped driving and sought the assistance of others to drive for him.

“You will never know what is the actual scene when your driver calls you in the middle of the night and hollers that the RTO has stopped him and demanding Rs.5,000 and humbly asks you: ‘saab, what to do? Tell me!’. Hell, you know that you are far away from the site from where he is calling and no way you can verify what he says is true or false.”

So what he does?

“What can you do? You tell him (driver) to pay up and move on,” he says philosophically.

But you know you’ve been taken for a ride, he reminds me with a heavy dose of bitterness.

Why? “That’s hard life,” he comments. What can he do?

I want to ask him whether he was also economical with truth when he himself was driving someone’s truck.

However, I resist the temptation because I firmly believe that what you sow is what you reap.

It is perhaps comeuppance time for Ranjit Singh.

If drivers are taking him for a ride, why does he continue to be in the same business? Why can’t he shut shop and get into some other better and less cumbersome business – where trust or mistrust is not such a big challenge?

“Which other business I know?” asks the portly truck driver-turned-motor malik who never revealed to his MBA son, currently working in Saudi Arabia and an B.Ed daughter teaching in some Jharkhand school, that it was his earning as a driver that helped them see better times in their childhood and their present social status. By the time, they came off age, Singh maintains that he has turned into motor malik and always sitting in Tatanagar transport hub and sending his trucks with drivers. Not driving himself. Yes, he has moved up the social ladder – from that of a truck driver to motor malik. Remarkable indeed. There are many such cases across India.

He is confident that his transport business will die a natural death once he leaves for heavenly abode at some point of time. Until that unscheduled departure from terra firma, he would continue to be in this business. Neither of his children is likely to inherit this trucking business, which according to him, is “nothing but constant stress and strain”.

Singh’s story automatically brings back the sweet memories of our encounter with the fast-paced and unstoppable Malik (man in checked full sleeves in extreme left), one of the best story tellers I had run into on highways, the previous day.

We ran into him at the body building fabrication centre where his new Leyland chassis is being built and simultaneously a team of surveyors from ICICI Lombard are at the same spot clicking photos of his ill-fated truck that is awaiting insurance claim.

Over steaming cups of tea at a roadside dhaba, surrounded by half a dozen eager listeners, the moustache-less Malik opens up with a bit of his family history. This Patna-based motor malik with a fleet of 12 trucks has some property in Giridih and hence switches places frequently.

“Mind you, the entire fleet of 12 is bought with my money earned in Doha, Qatar,” he dramatically announces. The idea is to dispel any wrong notion that his trucking business is a flourishing business and he did not begin with one truck and graduated into a 12-truck motor malik by ploughing back his profits from the maiden truck.

“But that is the impression,” he emphasizes. Even his own brother-in-law kept nudging him that Malik is ‘rolling in money due to trucking business’ and hence wanted Malik to help him get into the same business.

“I sensed that experience will teach him the real lessons of life and therefore helped him buy a truck,” says he with a mischievous smile. Hardly a  year later, the same brother-in-law wants Malik’s assistance to get out of the trucking business because, “now he knows what is the reality of running a truck business”, admits he.

What’s the biggest challenge in running truck business?

“Driver management,” pat comes the response. “They are the asli (real) kings. Not us, the fleet owners. We lead a high blood pressure life and sleepless nights day in and day out,” says he. His pain is discernible.

Listen to his own narration:

I was having my evening tea with my brother in law at a roadside dhaba a few months ago.

At the adjacent table, there was a person having his food. He was getting fuzzy with the food being served. “The chicken is bad. Take it away. Give me lamb roast,” he was ordering the hotel staff.

Then his mobile began to ring. He picked, noticed at the dial and said: ‘Oh, my God. It is “Tension” on the line’.

That word ‘Tension’ made me sit up and realize that he meant his malik. We are used to this kind of jargon among trucking fraternity that fleet owners are nicknamed as ‘Tension’ by drivers.

‘Hello, saab. I have arrived at Tata Steel, but there is a long queue. Maybe 500 trucks in front of me. It looks like our truck will get an entry into the unloading yard after 2 days.”

I pinched my brother in law and told him: “Look, he is sitting here in this dhaba (150 km away from Tata Steel plant), but narrating a cock and bull story to his malik….. Listen.. Listen”

Again the driver was speaking into the phone:

‘Saab, I have spoken to the gate keeper and he demands Rs.2000 to help me jump queue. But, I have negotiated the price to Rs.1,000. He has agreed.”

…

‘Saab, I know you will not say ‘no’ to this price. …’

“Hello…. Hello’

The driver deliberately acts as if the phone line got disconnected and puts the phone down.

He looks at the plate of lamb roast which has become cold. Pushing it awaym he shouts:

“Chotu, take this away. Not good. Get me a fresh tandoori chicken’.

Malik looks at us triumphantly, having proved his point.

What is his point?

Drivers are crooks and contrary to general perception, the motor maliks are to be pitied. Not truck drivers.

That is not all.

Two of his drivers are today fleet owners, Malik claims categorically.

That too just after 18 months of working for Malik Roadlines.

Don’t ask him how did they manage to move up.

Yet we pose that question.

“Can’t you figure out yourself?....” demands a crestfallen Malik and after a short pause proclaims, “They looted me consistently. Yes, I have no proof, but that is the truth.”

Is he making any money? If he is not, why he continues to be in this business? Why can’t he move out?

“The moment I say I want to sell (my) trucks, my social status will take a beating. How can I afford that infamy? So I bite my teeth and continue to suffer. Remember the cost of everything has gone up: diesel, tyre, drivers’ salary, RTO bribes, more toll gates … everything. But the freight rates have not changed for the past 5 years. No jokes,” he confesses.

As I take the last sip of my sugarless strong tea from the broken porcelain cup, I look across National Highway 2 – linking Delhi with Kolkota. The new truck that is being built belongs to none other than my host – I K Malik.

Does Malik – like Ranjit Singh – really mean what he says? Or are they making a fool of Selvan and myself?

I am absolutely clueless. Am sure Selvan too.

Are truck drivers so cruel? Maybe some.

It is a fact that when truck drivers become owners, by and large they ensure their fleet is driven/managed by their own kith and kin. Not anyone outside the family circle. Reason: distrust of their own fraternity, perhaps.

Notwithstanding the perpetual distrust/mistrust between motor maliks and drivers, both will survive and co-exist forever. After all, they are mutually dependent and part of the same eco-system. Live and let live. Simple and perfect recipe for survival.

Who is to be blamed for this mutual distrust? Both, I will.

The way the Indian trucking business runs is pathetic. A majority of fleet owners are small, possessing not more than 3-5 trucks. They are totally unorganized and compete with each other for every single load. Though the rulebook talks about Minimum Freight Rate to be fixed by state governments, it is not practiced. Majority of the fleet owners do not hire drivers on a permanent monthly salary. Instead, drivers are hired on per trip basis under which a fixed sum is paid for moving goods from point A to point B. This fixed sum is inclusive of all en route expenses (interstate border crossing fees, road user fee/toll, RTO bribe besides driver’s food allowance). While a major chunk of these expenses are predictable and taken account of, the RTO bribe element is a dicey issue. What these highway vultures would demand is anybody’s guess.

In the absence of a regular paycheck, drivers look out for avenues to make quick money. The RTO bribe comes in as a perfect formula to milk maliks. Is there really a RTO on the highway who got his pound of flesh and did the driver genuinely part with money is difficult to verify by motor maliks. “You have no option. So you go along with whatever your driver says from hundreds of kilometer away from where you are. Mistrust my own driver? Even if I were to suspect him, what can I do – sitting in my office or home? If I sack him on the spot, what will happen to the merchandise being carried? Who will take care of it till a suitable alternative is found?” asks an agitated Ashwani Kaushik, Chairman of RHR Logistics based out of Chennai.

Ranjit Singh pointedly asks: “Hypothetically, let us assume, I sacked my cheating driver on the spot and somehow managed to send another driver to the spot without any loss of time. Tell me, what is the guarantee that the new driver will not cheat me? If not now, at the next available opportunity. My own experience is that it is a tricky business. There are no sovereign guarantees on the drivers’ good character.”

“My father was driver in Punjab. Whenever people see us in those days, they used to say, ‘Yeh Baoji’s ka beta hai” (This is Baoji’s son) and we were proud of driver’s family. It was a respectable profession those days. Not any more,” recollects Kaushik.

How any business can run and prosper if there is so much of mistrust between partners is a mystery. It runs still. Motor maliks have not hung up their boots and gone into the Himalayas. Drivers, uneducated and untrained as is wont, definitely take advantage of the RTO challenge on highways and milk motor maliks. All said and done, it is not a cosy relationship. But they co-exist.

Will a regular paycheck format usher in a change in the character of truck drivers and make him less of a cheat? Opinion reserved.

Catherine Ross and John Mirowsky, two eminent psychologists, put it succinctly: “Mistrust, the opposite of trust, is the cognitive aspect of interpreting the intentions and behaviour of others as unsupportive, self-seeking and dishonest. (It) is also an absence of faith in other people based on a belief that they are out for their own good and will exploit or victimize you in pursuit of their own goals.”

My own experience of 21,000 km travel on Indian highways in the company of hundreds of truck drivers across length and breadth of India over the past four years and close interaction with motor maliks – small, medium and big – proves that both sides live on the edge. No social safety net for drivers. Inadequate government support for fleet owners. Poor organizational capability of fleet owners to get their voice heard because the transport industry is dominated by agents and brokers whose investment is nothing to write home about. Certainly, it is an easy business to get into because it does not call for any specific skill sets: be it for a motor malik or truck driver. Strange, but true. That’s one big commonality between these two diverse groups, whose mutual mistrust is perpetual but still they continue to do business together for want of better business model.

“You’ve only highlighted the living condition of truck drivers so far in your books. Now time for you to turn the spotlight on us – the fleet owners – also. Our challenges are not insignificant,” said Amit Chandwar, Director of Jaipur-based KMT Logistics recently.

Ranjit Singhs, IK Maliks and Chandwars are no stray cases, but the real underbelly of Indian trucking business.

If the motor malik-truck driver mutual mistrust were to cross an unseen threshold limit of tolerance, then the fate of 1.2 billion Indian populace is unimaginable. Only God can help.

Note:

Indian Rupee, once upon a time, was equivalent to 16 annas with each anna worth six paise. Subsequently this anna methodology vanished with the advent of one INR equaling 100 paise. So ‘Baara” (Twelve in Hindi) constitutes three-fourth in 16 annas calculation format. “Chaar” means four in Hindi.

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http://driversduniya.blogspot.in/2013/08/troubling-truck-on-highways-offer-liquor.html