Churning out miles.........I am home

7:30 am and I am up, no alarms were needed. Karnataka Express would be reaching Delhi by 10:30am and I needed to be home by 2pm. I let Khatri sleep and the car engine comes to life at 8:15. By 8:30am, I am on the highway again. The day is bright, the skies all lit and no signs of the fog. 20 kms on, I run into fog but its not that dense. Visibility is around a km. At Shahpura, a policeman flags me down. I am ready with my tale but he makes a polite face and asks for a favour, his superior is standing by his side and he needs a lift to Kotputli. Wow!!! We chat and he tells me the history of the Delhi-Jaipur highway. How the earlier highway was a mess with ditches and jams, how tenders were invited and the new highway opened and where all he was transferred all along. But all along, he was too courteous for a policeman. At Kotputli he said okay and was off.
I continued and when Gurgaod was 30, I pulled in at a dhaba. It was 11:30, I ordered some paranthas and curd, called up biwi and broke the news to her. She didnt believe what I told her. It took five minutes to convince her that I was infact driving all the way from Bangalore and the Karnatka Express does not matter any more. Well, the next 2 hours will give people at home enough time to soak in the shock and make my arrival smooth.
I get into Gurgaon, keep following signs for Delhi and then Dhaula Kuan. I passed 2 tolls on the way (Rs 21 and Rs 17). But you don't mind the tolls if you get to drive through Gurgaon at 90km/hr. As the toll road ended, I reached a T point, I turn right here and hit Dhaula Kuan. At Dhaula Kuan, you need to stick to signs for Naraina and get on to the ring road. Stick to the ring road and be in the middle lane, being on the either of the other two lanes can lead you into tricky situations. Some of the right ones just turn right with no way to go straight. I have no such trouble as I stick to the middle lane. I keep on the ring road till Karnal road, at Azadpur. Here, I tae a left get on to the Karnal road and go straight towards Karnal (Panipat/Chandigarh). The byepass is in a mess and the worst section of the entire route from Bangalore. It takes me an hour to clear past the bye-pass mess.
At 2:15 pm, I am at Samalkha (70kms from Delhi). My brother-in-law comes out to receive me, he doesnt say anything, just smiles. He knows me.
2:30 pm, I have Mishti in my lap, her innocent cute face makes all the journey worthwhile. I am home.
Some decades back, my dad did Jammu to Kanya Kumari, and back, in his second hand Maruti 800. Today, somewhere up there, he must be smiling and feeling very proud. Its all in the genes. Someday, lil Mishti will read this read this story too.