Wander through India : Northern Expedition 2014 : Day III

# DAY III: Behror-Anandpur sahib sector

#12. It is important to be flexible on road trips, one has to keep this aspect always in mind for disruptions can occur anytime and in any manner .This sector was one on which I had no clarity even while I was planning the trip hence the poor homework showed up when the time came to deliver. To cover a route like Behror-Mandi which is close to 700 km , involves a journey time of ten hours .One has to be begin real early to do this and moreover there is also NH 21 to deal with which behaves like an errant driver who delivers though on his own terms ,once one crosses Anandpur Sahib and enters Himachal NH 21 begins dictating the terms with no negotiations in the bargain. Anyways sitting on a computer and working with line diagrams everything looks hunky dory but reality is a class apart and I was going to find it soon enough.

#13. However probably the tiredness of the previous day ensured that we could begin only by 0830 hours and in such a situation instead of fretting about the huge delay in starting , the next best thing to do is to enjoy the journey. Hence this time I had decided instead of going via Murthal would rather go via Rohtak and join the Grand Trunk Road at Panipat.

#14. The section from Rohtak to Panipat is super smooth , and when I say that I mean it really looks like a brand new highway (NH 709)that has been constructed which cuts through the heart of rural Haryana and powers through to meet the GT road near Panipat. However I really was delayed reaching till Rohtak and m not sure as to why, the roads were not that difficult but maybe I was taking it somewhat easy. Breakfast was a leisurely affair sitting underneath the shade of a tree a short distance from the highway having hot parathas with butter and curd as the vehicles could be seen zipping by in the distance and if one looked around open vistas of green fields beckoned , really a place worth coming back to time n again. We live in cities or towns and our idea of eating out is either the swanky restaurant with cutlery or it is the dimly lit interior of a fast food joint where the objective is just to eat , but the feeling of sitting and eating out in the open in the most natural of surroundings without the recreation of any theme based environment with the shade of a tree providing all the coolness is am sure cherished by all at some point in their life.

#15. A few words about the Grand Trunk road that we were travelling upon is I feel most essential for it is one of South Asia’s most oldest and longest major roads. It has linked the Eastern and Western region of the subcontinent for over four centuries originating from Chittagong in Bangladesh, entering India through Howrah and then cutting across North India reaching the Wagah Border where it enters Pakistan towards Lahore and Gurjanwala and then entering Afghanistan through the Khyber pass and finally culminating at Kabul, a single continuum of over 2500 kms.As Rudyard Kipling has put it “such a river of life as nowhere else exists in the world”.

#16. As one travels through the length of this country one realizes how much there is to see and assimilate. Every small town has a history and a story to tell , there is a place waiting to be explored and spoken about .Ambala Cantt had the army look written all over it and it houses the “2 Corps” one of the three strike corps of the Indian Army. Ambala Air Base is one of the oldest in the country.

#17. A small look into the route taken till now , this would involve the start from Behror , then the turn towards Rohtak away from NH 8 , one does this at Rewari .Thereafter comes Panipat , Karnal,Ambala Cantt. After Ambala Cantt we pushed on towards Kiratpur Sahib and thereafter Anandpur Sahib via Mohali.Mohali is like filled with club houses , apartments and townships and this is so contrasting to the image of the Punjab heartland which consists of lush fields ,rows of eucalyptus trees and tractors in the distance.I was amazed with the amount of housing societies out here. The best moments of travelling on the National Highways is in my opinion are the evening twilight and the early morning. The sights that sometimes unfold are too spectacular, sometimes it is a lonely curvy bridge in the evening setting sun and then again there could be the long arrow straight road stretching in to the distance as the sun sets. These sights truly spur the traveler to undertake many more journeys. By the t me I reached Ananadpur Sahib which is – km from Kiraptpur Sahib I was truly way off the schedule. But then as I had already let go the schedule in the morning itsefl I was not fretting too much, we decided to visit the Gurudwara at Anandpur Sahib which maybe in the other scenario would not have been possible and I am really thankful that I did so.

#18. A few words on the Gurudwara Anandpur Sahib which was founded by the ninth guru , Guru Teg Bahadur in the year 1665. The Takht Sri Kesh Garh Sahib is located here, this is one of the 5 temporal authorities of Sikhism. These 5 takhts are gurudwaras which are regarded as having special significance to Sikhism. Sri Darbar Sahib Keshgarh is regarded as the birthplace of the Khalsa.The order of the Khalsa was founded here in 1669 and one is fortunate to see the weapons used by Guru Gobind Singh ji out here.

#19. After the visit got completed the clock read 2000 hours , we decided to have an early dinner as the mountain roads were scheduled to start after this , the route that had been planned after this was Nangal, Una , Bhota , Ner Chowk , Mandi. At a road side dhaba some distance after crossing Anandpur Sahib towards Nangal which was occupied by few truckers I casually entered into a discussion on the route ahead and was emphatically instructed that I should not take the route ahead considering the state of the recent rainfall that had occurred and more so in the night; rather they advised me to take the standard route of the NH 21 via Swar Ghat , Bilaspur , Mandi .

#20. I think at this point I should have disregarded their opinion but then would that have been a correct thing to do considering that I had no real time info on the route ahead and the time was close to 2100 hours , well I will never know , what I did do was cancel the route planned and decided to take the route that everyone does but somehow when we started we were not convinced on the journey . I believe that if one is not convinced about the journey that one has to undertake better is not to go ahead itself and that is what we did, aborted the destination for the day and modified it to Anandpur Sahib itself. As soon as we did that I really felt quite good from within, found a great hotel on the Highway where the room was available and with a spring in the step took a break for the day. Tomorrow we would see what lies ahead. For the moment it was memories of the Gurudwara in the peaceful and holy town of Anandpur Sahib. ODO for the day stood at 74176.