Caravansarai : Short Stories from the GT Road (01)

Day Zero:

Date: 30^th May 2012, Wednesday, Location: Mehrauli, CRCI

Off we rode ... Between the Lines 

The trip for me started before we had left CRCI and Delhi behind. I had just switched on my laptop to the see the first mail from Johri. I read it out to myself in denial rather than disbelief: Temperature and Weather Forecasts for the coming week in Chandigarh forecasted read as : Burning in HELL. Not a single reading was below 45°C. And I imagined large fields waving in the thrashing Loo. 

AWESOME! G stood in the middle of the office instructing us to carry out caps, umbrellas, towels, and ORS refills, to keep ourselves useful during the trip. And lastly she said, “Enjoy the Trip Girls”! That was very hilarious in a way, because if I associated enjoying to anything- it was lazing around! Obviously we weren’t going to laze around on site and the intensity of being there, outside the screen of Autocad at trying temperatures with sweat, dust and the tan that would mutilate what would be left of us…and with donkey-loads of luggage; Enjoying=Lazing… didn’t seem likely.

Photos by author

We were (finally) going to Punjab and the Grand Trunk road. Working on the project for a couple of months now, I was curious to know what these sites actually were- in reality. It was the only way the names would mean more to me than words on a sheet of paper; if I could just make that connection or an association with the site which was lacking.

Midst the chaos of booking and re-booking tickets and cancelling old ones, we filed all our work, piled up the stationary, packed the horrendously heavy laptops on our backs and walked down the four floors of Qutb Green Apartments. I knew that this being my first site visit with the team would be an eye-opener of sorts.

I loved to travel and over the past few weeks my nomadic life was just making it easier for me to enjoy the long drives, rattling trains and burrowing pathways. But 48 degrees was the only thing that kept flashing in my mind.

Theoretically, I was behind the rest, untrained. To avoid feeling like a complete retard when I reached the Site, I read through the reports of the other three sites besides the Maulsari Hotel of Aam Khas Bagh that were to be on my radar: The Sadna Kasai/Qusai Mosque at Fathegarh Sahib, The Mughal Bridges enroute Sirhind-Fategarh Sahib and The Tomb of Subhan at Dera Mir Miran. 

Photos by author

The names sounded poetic, but I anticipated that the names were just about the only poetry in them. I was aware that I didn't know everything about these structures, but then the whole point was to explore beyond what we read in the books, and for that I thought a fresh pair of eyes and a Fresh Mind was best however uninformed. Wherever there were blanks, we had seniors and professionals on the trip to fill them, right? To guide me…I hoped. So we set off to Chandigarh the next day hoping for the same.