Five rivers of friendship

Cyrus Dadachanji &Mohit Midha
31^st March - 1^st April 2007

On March 31, 2007, as most of the world closed a financial year, the SAARC Rally 2007 team opened doors to a world of continuing friendship across borders. On this day, we drove from Lahore to Amritsar, retracing our steps across the Wagah border. The distance covered in miles was insignificant, but the return journey had put a stamp in the history books of all the participating nations.

As we crossed back into India, the first question we were asked was "How was your stay in Pakistan?" When we spoke of the tumultuous welcome and the warmth showered upon us at every step, the journalists were not sure how to react. Somehow that did not fit in with their notions of Pakistani diplomacy. But we assured them that there was only love all around, before proceeding towards Amritsar.

During our travels across Pakistan and en route to Amritsar, we crossed five large rivers, namely Beas, Sutlej, Jhelum, Chenab and Ravi. Each of these rivers is fed by melting Himalayan snows from ranges in Nepal and Bhutan. Nature knows no political borders and nourishes both India and Pakistan equally. It's time we took a leaf out of her book and co-operated between nations in a similar fashion.

On the First of April, its very difficulty to be taken seriously. More so when you need to make announcements to a bunch of 100 eager beavers like us. If our Marshall, Renuka felt that way, she surely did not show it. One by one, we were herded into our respective cars and drove out of the parking lot towards Delhi. The convoy moved slowly through the streets of Amritsar, almost as if to reflect the mixed feelings many of our Indian team mates had about reaching the capital. Today, will be the last day of the rally for some of them. On the other hand there is a flag off by the premiers of seven countries to look forward to.

Once we had left the outskirts of the city, the convoy still continued at a snail’s pace. Twenty eight edgy drivers, used to relatively high speeds could not fathom why the pilot car would not speed up. It took a lot of cajoling and a few phone calls to senior police officials to get the convoy going at a decent clip. After more than an hour on the road, we came to the outskirts of small town called Beas – and the mother of all traffic jams. Every Sunday, over a hundred thousand followers of the Radha Swami sect descend on this town to pay obeisance at a local shrine. To add to the chaos, a vehicle had broken down on a bridge, leading to a huge bottleneck.

It took our pilot car over 45 minutes, with sirens wailing and foot patrolling to clear a narrow stretch of road for our convoy. As we inched our way past the stuck traffic, we realised that the traffic jam stretched a few kilometres and without assistance, we would probably have been stuck for hours. We jokingly told the Bhutanese that we had brought out the equivalent of entire population of Bhutan, in cars, to welcome them.

Relieved to be out of this mess, the pilot cars sped up the pace and before we knew it, we were speeding towards Ludhiana town. En route, we passed the Punjab Police Academy at Pinjaur. Karma, the Superintendent of Traffic Police from Bhutan had spent a year here training with the Punjab Police and had only praise for their skills. Obviously, the rivers of friendship ran deeper than we expected.

At Ludhiana, one of the Tata Dealers and fellow rally member, Ravleen had invited us to his workshop for snacks. Unknown to us, the Government officials had also organised a function on the outskirts of the town. The end result was that we ended up attending two refreshment halts in the span of an hour!

The rest of the drive to Delhi was uneventful, if you can call cruising along a National Highway that has been cleared just for you as uneventful! This is an honour reserved only for Prime Ministers and visiting Heads of State. If the hot Punjab sun wasn’t enough, this sure made one feel truly heady. As we approached Delhi, we realised that the Police had really gone all out this time. We covered the distance from the outskirts of the city to our hotel in twenty minutes, instead of the usual hour and a half that it would take. With roads cleared and cordoned off for us with military precision, we were being treated to a once in a lifetime experience.

None of the residents of Delhi in our team had ever seen anything like this. We were truly being given royal treatment, and a welcome to India's capital that few of us are likely to ever forget. It's true, India can be an overwhelming experience, in may ways.