When a relative suggested driving from Ahmedabad to Delhi, I was eager to join in. It was a chance to drive through four states and promised a closer look at the fascinating National Highway 8.While growing up in Vadodara, it was coming up by my home. I would hear the heavy trucks and wonder where they came from and went. The Vadodara-Ahmedabad stretch — the only bit of the highway I knew — was narrow and accident prone. Years later, as a newspaper professional, my assignments took me down NH 8. And, as night falls, from the balcony of my Ahmedabad flat I can still hear the hum of the trucks passing by Sarkhej on NH 8. I had driven twice to Mumbai on NH 8 but the region to the north was unchartered territory.With a full tank, we hit the highway at 6 am. The air was slightly chilly and the traffic thin. We sped across on the unbelievably smooth four-lane surface. Three hours later we had crossed into Rajasthan and soon Udaipur was on the milestone. Time for a break. After the unhindered drive on the wide four-lane track, it was disappointing to converge into the narrow two-lane stretch nearing Udaipur. Four-laning is yet to come to parts of Rajasthan.Truck drivers on the Udaipur-Ajmer stretch were a pain. They never let one overtake and changed lanes without indication. After a couple of outbursts, I felt I shouldn’t let the truck drivers spoil the ride. Once I learnt to take them in my stride, the pleasure of driving was back. We soon left behind the historic Haldi Ghati, the Eklingji Temple, where Maharana Pratap offered prayers before his battles, and the temple town of Nathdwara.After Nathdwara, NH 8 opened up again. In fact it will soon be 6-laned here although only one side is open for traffic right now. One stepped on the gas and the Palio responded. Listening to Bryan Adams’ ‘Summer of ’69’, we shot across on the windswept highway soaking in the landscape, past showrooms of the finest marble from Makrana, resorts built like havelis and those intriguing ‘marutas’ (small vehicles run on an agriculture diesel engine).Hurling past at over 120 km, Ajmer soon fell. It was 2 pm and we had covered 520 km. It was difficult to find good eating joints in this stretch and it took some time to locate one. An hour later, we hit the road again with Jaipur in sight and by 5 pm, we were in the midst of its heavy traffic. The plan was to spend the night at Jaipur but with plenty of daylight left and the four-lane Jaipur-New Delhi NH 8 beckoned, the decision was unanimous. Ab dilli door nahi. As the speedometer climbed, the miles fell and the sight of glass-fronted buildings of Gurgaon gave me a thrill. We soon melded into New Delhi’s late evening traffic of Diwali shoppers, finally homing into Dhaula Kuan, where we were to stay. We had covered 980 km in 14 hours!Over the last few years, NH 8 had grown from being a narrow, pot-holed ridden thoroughfare to a four-lane wonder. Hats off to the engineers and workers of NHAI for making this miracle happen!
